I think I might have a family commitment on the 16th
How does 11/30 look for everyone? Need all the hot takes on this one.
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I gave up on Catch 22 about a third of the way through. Other books I was interested in started coming off hold on the library site.
I can make 11/30 work.
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yes! Let’s get it on the books and have at!
I feel really bad about letting people down on this - things have been a bit nuts and stressful at work and I’ve dropped all other responsibility as a completely normal adult response 
@Double_Bogey_Dave can you update the title of the thread?
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I can do 11/30!
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Finished this evening! Will try to find some decent discussion questions for tomorrow
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I haven’t found any good discussion questions…all kindof suck actually (no one wants to have to write an essay on the book 
)
Is someone able to set up a zoom for 6pm Pacific time? (@mcdonart22 - if not, could @MrVinegar206 @MrChickPhilA @KVV maybe help out?)
I cant. Got a meeting tonight
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“You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don’t like bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate."
“Consciously, sir, consciously,” Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously.”
@Sarah Milady…
Topic: Catch 22 Book Club
Time: Nov 30, 2022 09:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
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Sorry for the Irish goodbye! Phone died, and it’s about my east coast bedtime anyway.
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Thanks guys!!
@greebs we think you should pick the next book!
@Prof_D - any thoughts on a spring seminar?
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Sounds good! I’ll come up with one or more suggestions and post them back here. If folks are up for a certain genre or whatever, let me know.
Totally forgot this was happening tonight! Bummed to miss it. Hope the discussion was interesting and I look forward to the next one.
I only made it 1/3 of the way through Catch 22 before losing interest, but I was planning to join in anyway. Had a minor parenting/ITguy crisis instead. Hope it went well and I will try to be there next time.
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OK, here are a few options. These are all books on my “to-read” list so I’m being selfish in that regard but I think they are there for a reason! These are all on many 2022 “Best Of” lists.
Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins. This one I learned about from @Randy on the Trap Draw. It’s 540 pages long in print, so it’s not a short one. Here’s the description on Amazon:
Rockwell “Rocky” Rhodes has spent years fiercely protecting his California ranch from the LA Water Corporation. It is here where he and his beloved wife Lou raised their twins, Sunny and Stryker, and it is here where Rocky has mourned Lou in the years since her death.
As Sunny and Stryker reach the cusp of adulthood, the country teeters on the brink of war. Stryker decides to join the fight, deploying to Pearl Harbor not long before the bombs strike. Soon, Rocky and his family find themselves facing yet another incomprehensible tragedy.
Rocky is determined to protect his remaining family and the land where they’ve loved and lost so much. But when the government decides to build a Japanese-American internment camp next to the ranch, Rocky realizes that the land faces even bigger threats than the LA watermen he’s battled for years. Complicating matters is the fact that the idealistic Department of the Interior man assigned to build the camp, who only begins to understand the horror of his task after it may be too late, becomes infatuated with Sunny and entangled with the Rhodes family.
Another suggestion is Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. This feels a bit like a Basic Bitch Bookclub suggestion if I’m being honest, but I flat out LOVED her first two books, Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You.
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left the family when he was nine years old without a trace. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, his family’s life has been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic.
Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.
Solito by Javier Zamora. This is a memoir and folks keep raving about it.
Javier Zamora’s adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote” hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.
At nine years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents’ arms, snuggling in bed between them, and living under the same roof again. He cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that await him; nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside fellow migrants who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.
And, one that looks like it’s a bit more FUN than the rest of these if that’s the mood we want to go for:
How To Be Eaten by Maria Adellman. Here’s the description:
In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the fallout of dating a psychopathic, blue-bearded billionaire. Ruby, once devoured by a wolf, now wears him as a coat. Gretel questions her memory of being held captive in a house made of candy. Ashlee, the winner of a Bachelor-esque dating show, wonders if she really got her promised fairy tale ending. And Raina’s love story will shock them all.
Though the women start out wary of one another, judging each other’s stories, gradually they begin to realize that they may have more in common than they supposed . . . What really brought them here? What secrets will they reveal? And is it too late for them to rescue each other?
Dark, edgy, and wickedly funny, this debut for readers of Carmen Maria Machado, Kristen Arnett, and Kelly Link takes our coziest, most beloved childhood stories, exposes them as anti-feminist nightmares, and transforms them into a new kind of myth for grown-up women.
So…which one?
- Properties of Thirst
- Our Missing Hearts
- Solito
- How To Be Eaten
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voters
I’ve been in a serious book rut. So would love to participate in the next book club. Properties of Thirst sounds awesome as well as Solito. I actually do quite a bit of work in Guatemala and have personal relationships with people who have very close to home experiences with family members coyote-ing through Mexico into the states. So I may add this to my list to read anyways. So I’d vote for either of these!
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Sorry I missed – we had the sickness run through our house last week and we’re slowly starting to all be back to normal. I’m game for another Spring Seminar – are there any “classic” American novels that folks would like to do in this format? I can also come up with some titles and run a poll like @greebs did
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Huck Finn - Twain?
Or
Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck?