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Bookaccino Live Book Group Event on November 16th

Links to https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_c0pDIrDGSkO88UfS7K1hJw.

Stephanie Land, author of Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive

At 28, Stephanie Land turned to housekeeping to make ends meet. With a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly. She wrote the true stories that weren't being told: the stories of overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps to eat. Of the government programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses. The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance. She wrote to remember the fight, to eventually cut through the deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor. MAID explores the underbelly of upper-middle-class America and the reality of what it's like to be in service to them.

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October 16, 2021

My book group met this month to discuss THE PAPER PALACE, and as always, we had a spirited discussion. We decided to go “old school” by looking at discussion questions and focusing our conversation since we felt there was a lot to discuss. All eight of us had opinions (lots of them) --- and lots of comments. At one point we talked about the ending; six of us saw it clearly one way, while two others saw it differently. And each person was absolutely sure that they were right. We wondered, How could it be any other way? We ended up having one of the members read the last three pages of the book, and by then I think we had reached a consensus. But once again this shows the power of reading together. Oh, and for the record, in my interview with Miranda Cowley Heller, she told me that she did not figure out how it was to end until the last three pages!

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November Bookaccino Live Event

Links to https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_EI7UTgmESs-9DjsciKACUg.

Chibundu Onuzo, author of Sankofa

Anna is at a stage of her life when she's beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother is dead. Searching through her mother's belongings one day, Anna finds clues about the African father she never knew. His student diaries chronicle his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. Anna discovers that he eventually became the president --- some would say dictator --- of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive. When Anna decides to track her father down, a journey begins that is disarmingly moving, funny and fascinating.

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Christine Pride, author of We Are Not Like Them

Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young and is finally pregnant after years of trying. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia. But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband’s freedom and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty.

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Lisa Unger, author of Last Girl Ghosted

She met him through a dating app. An intriguing picture on a screen, a date at a downtown bar. What she thought might be just a quick hookup quickly became much more. She fell for him --- hard. It happens sometimes, a powerful connection with a perfect stranger takes you by surprise. Could it be love? But then, just as things were getting real, he stood her up. Then he disappeared --- profiles deleted, phone disconnected. She was ghosted. Maybe it was her fault. She shared too much, too fast. Soon she learns there were others. Girls who thought they were in love. Girls who later went missing. Chasing a digital trail into his dark past --- and hers --- she finds herself on a dangerous hunt. And she's not sure whether she's the predator --- or the prey.

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Alice Hoffman, author of The Book of Magic

The Owens family has been cursed in matters of love for over 300 years, but all of that is about to change. The novel begins in a library, the best place for a story to be conjured, when beloved aunt Jet Owens hears the deathwatch beetle and knows she has only seven days to live. Jet is not the only one in danger --- the curse is already at work. A frantic attempt to save a young man’s life spurs three generations of the Owens women, and one long-lost brother, to use their unusual gifts to break the curse as they travel from Paris to London to the English countryside where their ancestor Maria Owens first practiced the Unnamed Art. The younger generation discovers secrets that have been hidden from them in matters of both magic and love by Sally, their fiercely protective mother.

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Amor Towles, author of The Lincoln Highway

In June 1954, 18-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served 15 months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction --- to the City of New York.

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Editorial Content for The Book of Form and Emptiness

Book

The Book of Form and Emptiness

Teaser

THE BOOK OF FORM AND EMPTINESS is a brilliantly inventive novel about loss, growing up and our relationship with things.

Promo

THE BOOK OF FORM AND EMPTINESS is a brilliantly inventive novel about loss, growing up and our relationship with things.

About the Book

A brilliantly inventive novel about loss, growing up and our relationship with things.

One year after the death of his beloved musician father, 13-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house --- a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.

At first, Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers. There, Benny discovers a strange new world. He falls in love with a mesmerizing street artist with a smug pet ferret, who uses the library as her performance space. He meets a homeless philosopher-poet, who encourages him to ask important questions and find his own voice amongst the many.

And he meets his very own Book --- a talking thing --- who narrates Benny’s life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.

With its blend of sympathetic characters, riveting plot and vibrant engagement with everything from jazz, to climate change, to our attachment to material possessions, THE BOOK OF FORM AND EMPTINESS is classic Ruth Ozeki --- bold, wise, poignant, playful, humane and heartbreaking.