All Booked | Book Club Musings
The original version of this newsletter was sent out on Tuesday, September 10.
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Hello, fellow bookworms!
This week, our incredible Arts, Culture & Community Editor Leslie Dinaberg takes some time out of her busy schedule to bring us some recent reads from her book club! Having never been part of one myself, I can’t compare experiences, but for those of you readers who have, feel free to chime in on your own experiences! Have you ever found your new favorite book from the recommendations of your fellow book club members? Tell me about it!
I hope everyone has been enjoying these warm August days. Happy reading!
—Tessa, allbooked@independent.com
I’ve been in a book club with the same wonderful group of women for more than 15 years, and while I treasure our long friendships and our monthly gatherings, I have sort of a love/hate relationship with being told what to read.
On the one hand, being in a book club stretches me out of my comfort zone and forces me to read things I would have never picked up otherwise. On the other hand, there are some books that I would never have picked up because I KNEW they just wouldn’t appeal to me and being assigned to them feels like homework that I thought I graduated from a long time ago.
That being said, the last three books my book club has read, despite their critical acclaim, all fell into the category of “I’m not that interested,” and I probably would not have read them if they hadn’t been assigned. I ended up enjoying each of them for different reasons.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is an epic historical novel about four generations of a Korean family who immigrate to Japan, where they encounter all sorts of racism, discrimination, and ridiculous stereotyping. The strength is in the depiction of the characters, particularly the unmarried and pregnant young Korean woman Sunja, whose desire not to bring shame on her family provides the impetus for her to leave her home and create a new life in Japan. While the work is fiction, Lee is Korean-American, and her own family stories lend a ring of authenticity to the book, which has also been made into a series on Apple TV (I haven’t watched it).
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride is another historic epic, this time set in 1930s America in Chicken Hill, a small town in Pennsylvania, where Black, Jewish, and European immigrants, rich and poor, old and young, have what can sometimes feel like a million different conflicts and stories, all of which ramble in different directions and ultimately connect in a mystery that’s satisfyingly unveiled at the end. After I read the book, I was not surprised to learn that McBride is an accomplished saxophonist/jazz musician. Music plays a role in the story, and his writing style is not unlike the unexpected riffs and side journeys that you sometimes find in jazz.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver is a book I really wasn’t eager to read. Many in my book club love Kingsolver, but in the past I’ve found her books (The Poisonwood Bible, The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams) all to be fine, but somewhat overrated. Expecting to be underwhelmed, I was very happily surprised by how much I enjoyed Demon Copperhead. A spiritual cousin to great literary voices like Holden Caulfield, Huck Finn, and, obviously, David Copperfield, this is a story set in contemporary Southern Appalachia, told from the perspective of a teenage boy who came into the world with a teenaged, drug-addicted single mom; copper-colored hair; and a sharp wit. He goes into foster care; is forced into child labor; experiences terrible schools, addiction, love, loss, more love, more loss, a taste of athletic success, and then a crippling injury; and, through it all, maintains a healthy sense of humor. This is a book that I not only enjoyed, but it has stayed with me and will make me look at the people from that part of the country (including Kingsolver, who is from rural Kentucky) with more appreciative and compassionate eyes.
Note: It’s dialect-heavy, and thanks to excellent timing of my library holds, I read this one with a combination of audiobook and on the Kindle, a method I recommend when you can make it work. “Hearing” Demon’s voice in my head really helped to breathe even more life into an already lively tale.
—Leslie Dinaberg
UPCOMING BOOK EVENTS
Below, you will find a few bookish events coming up in Santa Barbara. If you are hosting a bookish event in Santa Barbara, be sure to submit the event to our online events calendar.
Storytime at Solvang Library
Tuesday, August 27, 10:30 a.m. | Solvang Library
Montecito Book Club
Tuesday, August 27, noon | 1469 E. Valley Rd.
Storytime at Solvang Library
Wednesday, August 28, 10:30 a.m. | Solvang Library
Baby and Me Storytime
Wednesday, August 28, 11 a.m. | S.B. Central Library
Bilingual Songs & Stories for Kids
Wednesday, August 28, 11 a.m. | Franklin Elementary School
Book Signing: Gayle D. Beebe
Thursday, August 29, 4 p.m. | La Arcada Plaza
Book Talk and Signing: Maressa Voss
Thursday, August 29, 6 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books
Wiggly Storytime
Friday, August 30, 10:15 a.m. | S.B. Central Library
Preschool Story Time
Monday, September 2, 10 a.m. | Carpinteria Community Library
Wiggly Storytime
Tuesday, September 3, 10:15 a.m. | S.B. Central Library
Storytime at Solvang Library
Tuesday, September 3, 10:30 a.m. | Solvang Library
El Encanto Literary Club with Jan Carson
Tuesday, September 3, noon | El Encanto, A Belmond Hotel
Storytime at Solvang Library
Wednesday, September 4, 10:30 a.m. | Solvang Library
Baby and Me Storytime
Wednesday, September 4, 11 a.m. | S.B. Central Library
Bilingual Songs & Stories for Kids
Wednesday, September 4, 11 a.m. | Franklin Elementary School
Baby and Me Storytime
Friday, September 6, 10:30 a.m. | Goleta Valley Library
Storytime with Minh Lê and Dan Santat
Saturday, September 7, 11 a.m. | Godmothers Bookstore
Book Talk: Nicola Yoon and David Yoon
Saturday, September 7, 1 p.m. | Godmothers Bookstore
Storytime with Marla Frazee
Sunday, September 8, 11 a.m. | Godmothers Bookstore
Raíces y Sueños: Bilingual Storytime at the Art Museum
Sunday, September 8, 11 a.m. | Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Preschool Story Time
Monday, September 9, 10 a.m. | Carpinteria Community Library
LOCAL BOOK SPOTLIGHT
We at the Independent get many books sent to us by local authors, sometimes too many! It’s practically impossible for us to read and review them all, but just because we are busy bees does not mean that they aren’t worth the attention. In an attempt to not completely drop the ball, we have compiled a list of books here that have a local spin. They are all either written by a local author, feature someone in our community, or have another tie to Santa Barbara. I urge you to look through this list. Perhaps you will find your new favorite read!
The following are the most recent titles that have been sent to us. Click here for a more comprehensive list.
Ladies Who Lunch by Josef Woodard
A Book of Ink and Inklings by William J. Dalziel
The Baddest Dog in the Neighborhood by Doreen Ludka Maulhardt
If you are a local author and would like us to feature your book in this section, please email allbooked@independent.com with the subject line “Local Author Spotlight.”
Book Reviews Courtesy of CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF BOOKS*
Thanks to the generous contributions of David Starkey, Brian Tanguay and their team of reviewers at California Review of Books, we are able to provide a steady stream of book reviews via our content partnership. Recent reviews at Independent.com include:
Bewilderment by Richard Powers; review by David Starkey
*At the present time, all of the Independent’s book reviews are provided in collaboration with California Review of Books (calirb.com).
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