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November 23, 2024

Our last book club pick for the year is BE READY WHEN THE LUCK HAPPENS, and we are planning a fun evening with a potluck holiday celebration. I am looking forward to seeing what reading Ina Garten's memoir inspired us to plan for food and beverages. I highly recommend the audio edition of this book, which is read by Ina and is about a lot more than food!

I took away a couple of great business lessons. Take a look at your business to see what is worth spending time on, and where you may be spending time that is not valuable. For Ina, it was realizing that she was spending 95% of her time on catering, which brought in 5% of the revenue. This was a BIG revelation. I always kick myself when I see my own version of this and think, How did I not see this sooner? The best part about the holidays  --- after the frenzy of shopping, wrapping and baking --- is the time I have available to think instead of just doing.

Reviewer Event 2024

Percival Everett, author of James

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, who recently has returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN remain in place, Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

Niall Williams, author of Time of the Child

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean that he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father's shadow and remains there, having missed one chance at love --- and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy's lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter's lives, the understanding of their family and their role in their community are changed forever.

Nemonte Nenquimo, author of We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People

Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest --- one of the last to be contacted by missionaries in the 1950s --- Nemonte Nenquimo had a singular upbringing. She was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling and shamanism by her elders. At age 14, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture. She listened. Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in climate change activism. In WE WILL BE JAGUARS, she partners with her husband, Mitch Anderson, founder of Amazon Frontlines, digging into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, and hacking away at racist notions of indigenous peoples.

Nikki May, author of This Motherless Land

Quiet Funke is happy in Nigeria. But when tragedy strikes, she’s sent to England, a place she knows only from her mother’s stories. To her dismay, she finds the much-lauded estate dilapidated, the food tasteless, the weather gray. Worse still, her mother’s family is cold and distant. With one exception: her cousin, Liv. Free-spirited Liv has always wanted to break free of her joyless family. She becomes fiercely protective of her little cousin, and her warmth and kindness give Funke a place to heal. The two girls grow into adulthood the closest of friends, but the choices their mothers made haunt them. And when a second tragedy occurs, their friendship is torn apart. Against the long shadow of their shared family history, each woman will struggle to chart a path forward, separated by country, misunderstanding and ambition.

Editorial Content for The Blue Hour

Teaser

A masterful novel that is as page-turning as it is unsettling, THE BLUE HOUR recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith and cements Paula Hawkins’ place among the very best of our most nuanced and stylish storytellers.

Promo

A masterful novel that is as page-turning as it is unsettling, THE BLUE HOUR recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith and cements Paula Hawkins’ place among the very best of our most nuanced and stylish storytellers.

About the Book

The propulsive and powerful new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN.

Welcome to Eris: an island with only one house, one inhabitant, one way out. Unreachable from the Scottish mainland for 12 hours each day.

Once home to Vanessa, a famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared 20 years ago.

Now home to Grace, a solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.

But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, a visitor comes calling.

And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge.

A masterful novel that is as page-turning as it is unsettling, THE BLUE HOUR recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith and cements Paula Hawkins’ place among the very best of our most nuanced and stylish storytellers.

Editorial Content for The Fabled Earth

Teaser

Southern mythology and personal reckoning collide in this sweeping story inspired by the little-known history of Cumberland Island when a once-in-a-century storm threatens the natural landscape.

Promo

Southern mythology and personal reckoning collide in this sweeping story inspired by the little-known history of Cumberland Island when a once-in-a-century storm threatens the natural landscape.

About the Book

Sometimes the truth is found in a folktale.

1932. Cumberland Island off the coast of Southern Georgia is a strange place to encounter the opulence of the Gilded Age, but the last vestiges of the famed philanthropic Carnegie family still take up brief seasonal residence in their grand mansions there. This year’s party at Plum Orchard is a lively group: young men from some of America’s finest families who come to experience the area’s hunting beside a local guide, a beautiful debutante expecting to be engaged by the week’s end, and a promising female artist who believes she has meaningful ties to her wealthy hosts. But when temptations arise and passions flare, an evening of revelry and storytelling goes horribly awry. Lives are both lost and ruined.

1959. Reclusive painter Cleo Woodbine has lived alone for decades on Kingdom Come, a tiny strip of land once occupied by the servants for the great houses on nearby Cumberland. When she is visited by the man who saved her life nearly 30 years earlier, a tempest is unleashed as the stories of the past gather and begin to regain their strength. Frances Flood is a folklorist who has come to Cumberland Island seeking the source of a legend --- and also information about her mother, who was among the guests at a long-ago hunting party. Audrey Howell, briefly a newlywed and now newly widowed, is running a local inn. When she develops an eerie double exposure photograph, some believe she’s raised a ghost --- someone who hasn’t been seen since that fateful night in 1932.

Southern mythology and personal reckoning collide in this sweeping story inspired by the little-known history of Cumberland Island when a once-in-a-century storm threatens the natural landscape. Faced with a changing world, two timelines and the perspectives of three women intersect where a folktale meets the truth to reveal what Cumberland Island has hidden all along.

Editorial Content for The Grays of Truth

Teaser

Inspired by true events involving one of Baltimore’s most powerful families, THE GRAYS OF TRUTH is the story of one woman’s quest for answers in her fight for redemption --- and to save the man she loves.

Promo

Inspired by true events involving one of Baltimore’s most powerful families, THE GRAYS OF TRUTH is the story of one woman’s quest for answers in her fight for redemption --- and to save the man she loves.

About the Book

From bestselling historical true-crime author Sharon Virts comes a gripping tale of murder and deceit.

In Reconstruction-era Baltimore, members of the city’s elite keep turning up dead. Below the polished surface of high society, there are illicit affairs, jilted lovers, financial hardships and countless motives for murder. When Jane Gray Wharton’s husband, Ned, dies unexpectedly while overnighting at his brother’s home, Jane has no reason to question the circumstances of his death. But on a visit to the same house a few weeks later, both Jane and her daughter fall gravely ill, and Jane begins to suspect foul play.

Though a trained chemist and former nurse, Jane is haunted by a history of delusion, loss and institutionalization. As the unexpected and devastating deaths begin to multiply, Jane’s grip on reality starts to slip. When a respected army officer falls terribly ill after visiting the Whartons’ Baltimore home, Jane’s greatest fears become all too real. The time has come to act. But who will believe her? And can she even trust her own mind?

Inspired by true events involving one of Baltimore’s most powerful families, THE GRAYS OF TRUTH is the story of one woman’s quest for answers in her fight for redemption --- and to save the man she loves.

Editorial Content for The Grey Wolf

Teaser

Louise Penny pulls the curtain back on what modern terrorism could look like in THE GREY WOLF as Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, must figure out who he can trust in a race-against-time hunt for clues in a terrifying case.

Promo

Louise Penny pulls the curtain back on what modern terrorism could look like in THE GREY WOLF as Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, must figure out who he can trust in a race-against-time hunt for clues in a terrifying case.

About the Book

The 19th mystery in the #1 New York Times bestselling Armand Gamache series.

Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in Three Pines. Though the tiny Québec village is impossible to find on any map, someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. Reine-Marie watches with increasing unease as her husband refuses to pick up, though he clearly knows who is on the other end. When he finally answers, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning.

That's only the first in a sequence of strange events that begin THE GREY WOLF, the 19th novel in Louise Penny's #1 New York Times bestselling series. A missing coat, an intruder alarm, a note for Gamache reading "this might interest you," a puzzling scrap of paper with a mysterious list --- and then a murder. All propel Chief Inspector Gamache and his team toward a terrible realization. Something much more sinister than any one murder or any one case is fast approaching.

Armand Gamache, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, his son-in-law and second in command, and Inspector Isabelle Lacoste can only trust each other, as old friends begin to act like enemies, and long-time enemies appear to be friends. Determined to track down the threat before it becomes a reality, their pursuit takes them across Québec and across borders. Their hunt grows increasingly desperate, even frantic, as the enormity of the creature they’re chasing becomes clear. If they fail, the devastating consequences would reach into the largest of cities and the smallest of villages.

Including Three Pines.