Book Club Bonanza

This week has been a book club bonanza. In order of the riches:

* On Tuesday, my own club - now in its 8th year - met to discuss This Is Happiness, a 2019 novel by Niall Williams. Pleased to report the book - the first home run I finished in 2024 - was universally well-received. One charter member of my club - a serious reader - called it "...the best book I've read all year." 

Reflections From The Bell Curve: This Is Happiness

* On Wednesday, I attended my first meeting of a club that reads only non-fiction. My tenure in this group is officially off to an auspicious start with The Spy and the Traitor (2018 - Ben Macintyre), the best non-fiction book I've read in months. Spending time with a new group of people bonded by a love of reading is an almost surefire way to keep my mojo buzzing. I'm now pleasantly anticipating next month's discussion.    

* The Return by Hisham Matar was the subject this morning at my smallest club; just two of us have been meeting every month for ten years. Although memoirs have been a lower priority for me for a long time, Matar's 2016 account of his quest to learn of his father's fate in a notorious Libyan prison is worth any discerning reader's time. Muscular prose, riveting story, significant cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked political power in the modern world.  

And there's more soon to come. When we re-unite tomorrow with the fourteen folks with whom we've been travelling since 2016, one of our first evening's activities will be spent discussing The Meadow.  James Galvin's 1992 moving meditation on the majestic Colorado landscape and one man's relationship with the land is an ideal choice for this group given we'll be spending a great deal of our time during this eighth reunion in and around Rocky Mountain National Park. What a week for this bookworm; I'm a lucky guy. What have been some of your most recent reading riches, book club or otherwise?  

" I used to think the greatest gift you could give a person was a book, but now I think it is to have a conversation about a book." - Will Schwalbe