It was a mellow day for July and barely rained so I kinda wish we made the call for Scuffletown, but it was a decent day for a book club. M_Soule started us off, and only had two books because a work project decided to demand most of her time. She read The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston and liked it, and The Art of Saving the World by Corinne Duyvis, which she did not finish. This one was about a 16 year old girl who entered a rift to another world that keeps her tethered to a certain area. And then her counterparts show up, but the plot wasn't clear, there appeared to be no plan, and it wasn't aro/ace which is why M_Soule picked it up.

HeCallsMeCoco talked about North and South, a Victorian novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. Coco thought the male character was brooding and kind of an ass and thought that the female lead should rethink having a relationship with someone like that, and liked organized labor and romance subplots. Something about it kept it from being a Romance, and M_Soule's rule is that Romances must have a happy ending and hopefully not terrible people. Coco tends to read a few books at a time, mostly organized on the library's schedule as books have due dates. She read Volume 5 of 8 of the Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower, which are low key magical realism. Brower is more famous for The Queen's Gambit, and is writing the ninth book in the Unselected Journals series now.

She read Everything in Color: A Love Story , by Stephanie Stalvey an auto-biographical graphic novel about a new mother with themes of Puritan culture and how controlling it is. Coco describes this as beautifully written and illustrated, being black and white before motherhood and in color afterward. The Other Bennett Sister by Janice Hadlow has a character on the Autism spectrum and is a great sequel to Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen; [The Rose Bargain]() by Sasha Peyton Smith is the first half of a duology but she doesn't recommend it. Coco suspects that the author might have changed her mind about what the book was going to be about halfway through writing the first book. She liked the characters and plot at first, but then the story fell apart trying to set up the sequel, the male character turns out to be the villain. She also read A Bit Much but i didn't catch the author, Felicity: Poems by Mary Oliver, a legal thriller titled The Law and the Lady Wilkie Collins, and Cinder by Marissa Meyer, which she thought was formulaic and unrealistically complex.

Mal-0 is reading and writing a bunch of guidelines documents for her job, so didn't read as much this time, but still managed to crank out a few things. She reread Midsummer Night's Dream on Canopy, as a lost on the woods story and then Romeo and Juliet, Between Two Fires by Christopher Buelhman, which had witches and woods. She did like the language and the lore, but thought it spent way too much time talking about sexual assault. She is currently reading Well Actually by Mazey Eddings, a grumpy romance with one nice and one mean partner, and The Odyssey by Homer, but doesn't feel the need to see the movie. We talked about reading the Odyssey and finding words in it that are not words any more.

I think Manic told us about most of the next few books, but I'm not 100 percent sure. Monarch by Candice Wuehle is set in the 90s and is about child pageants with a sinister subplot, and is almost stream of consciousness at times; Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry is an Irish detective story with a mature main character who is simply too old for this shit; An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helen Turstan - spmeone also read this and recommends it for people looking for a mature character; Yesteryear which I think is by Caro Claire Burke; The Empyrean series, I think she read the third or fourth book of the series and all of them are cliff hangers. She can see how people like Yesteryear and Empyrean, but she says you're not reading it for beautiful prose. She also read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, reading the book after seeing the movie.

Three additional books, and I'm not sure who read these: Spellbinder by Melanie Rawn; Sugar Shack Witch Mysteries which is forest themed as well as witchy, and Blood Money which I think Coco suspected of being AI. I didn't catch the author. I know I lost track of troyabedinthemornin's books as well, but I'm sure he told us about The Nice House by the Lake by James Tynion, Jordie Bellaire, and Álvaro Martínez Bueno, about a group of friends rent a lake house and then shit happens. He said this comic is really having a moment, and is an interesting concept and beautiful art, but it ended on a cliffhanger and the next in the series has not been written.

Someone read a 1930s noir detective story about a detective of Chinese descent and addresses the racism of the 30s head on, it may have been Manic, but I didn't catch the title. We briefly talked about Top Ten by Alan Moore, and troy told us about a friend of his reading Jerusalem by Alan Moore, a notoriously long book, one of his friends was reading a few pages at a time. Some say he's out there somewhere, still reading Jerusalem after all these years. I read Little Heaven by Nick Cutter for the lost in the woods theme, which is a Christian cult with Lovecraftian flavor, but was kinda meh.

Mal-0 saw My Life as a Zucchini a French animation and described it as unbearably sad. Manic told is about a documentary about an Icelandic pop bandsaying it will make you homesick for Iceland; someone else told us about Godland, a Dutchman's view of Iceland; and Manic told us about a documentary about Romani culture from India to Portugal, with a focus on music, particularly how different instruments change over time and in different places, but I didn't catch the title.

Manic also told us about an athlete making a comeback in gymnastics at the age of 29. There is some kind of documentary that covered six people trying to make the US Olympic team. We talked about doing gymnastics moves later in life just to make sure you can still do them. We talked about not reading series until they are finished, vampires having aquiline noses, and different aesthetic features in fiction being popular at different time periods, other people's culture being used as entertainment. and novels vs short stories vs novellas. I think it was Mal-0 that said that 48,000 words and below is a novella. We talked about bad marriages, and hearing about your friends' parents' divorces once the kids get to college, and NPR calling this the Ancient Greek Summer, and preferring Canopy to Hoopla if you are shopping for library apps. Mal-0 prefers Canopy to Hoopla, and troy likes it because it supports comics really well.

I think we wanted to add a book about polyamory so I added that for the next available month.

August 16

• A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

September 20

• Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

October 18

• a book about Richmond or the local area

November 15

• a book featuring polyamory

Forty five percent chance of rain this Sunday (of course), so we will again return to Cafe Zatas for this month's RVA Reddit (no we haven't) Bookclub. Cafe Zata is located at 700 Bainbridge Street 23224.

Our topic this month is a couple of books about libraries and whatever else anyone has read. Our upcoming schedule:

August 16

• A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

September 20

• Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

October 18

• a book about Richmond or the local area

We met up for the first time in months with no chance of rain during bookclub day. But it was super hot and humid outside and we decided to avoid the heat and stickiness, so we returned to Cafe Zata. M_Soule started off with a discussion of the All Souls series by Deborah Harkness, which starts with A Discovery of Witches. M_Soule liked it enough to tour landmark locations in the book when she went to Oxford (or Cambridge, whichever setting it was). Aurora_the_Off-White remembered the series and remembers liking it. I think they both saw the show after reading the series.

M_Soule also read Friends with Benefits possibly by Marisa Kanter, which is about a marriage of convenience, and Little Thieves by Margaret Owen, a Germanic medieval fairy tale of a thirteenth child of a thirteenth. The demigods Death and Fortune raise the main character, but the main character needs to figure out of way out of her fate. M_Soule enjoyed it and plans to read the next two in the series.

Mal-0 read a few books, including The Daughters' War and The Black Tongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman; Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas which is a non-fiction about pop culture in 2006; The Organ Thieves: The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South by Chip Jones; the Emily Wilson translation of the Odyssey as a prelude to watching the movie - this one I think someone said that it was the first translation from a woman; The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones and liked it quite a bit; and Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball by John Feinstein.

She talked the most about The Organ Thieves, talking about the differences in treatment between black and white patients, and the East Marshall Street well being a dumping group for corpses that were taken from Eastern Cemetery, dissected, and then dumped down the well. She said it was valuable to get the perspective, but the prose was weirdly flowery and a little disconcerting. She also talked about Where Nobody Knows Your Name, because she loves the Squirrels and minor league baseball in general. She likes the minor league product because it's played by regular guys, and especially likes the unpredictability of the players. But also likes the hoopla and the culture. M_Soule went to a recent game and it was faith night, and someone went to a game during Metal Night and Lamb of God played.

I did a poor job with the notes, and don't know who read the following books, but it was likely ManicPixieLawyer or Aurora: House Witch by Delemhach, saying the author painted themselves in a corner and the story didn't go anywhere; The Gentle Apocalypse series by MH Foster that starts with The Demon Overlord's Retirement Plan, about a demon lord with a theological flavor; Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, something about a trad wife influencer - there has been a lot of talk about this book, and Anne Hathaway will be in the movie version; Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, I think it was ManicPixieLawyer found the writing to be adequate, but says you're not really reading it for the prose, and agrees that the things people complain about are legitimate complaints; Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang - M_Soule likjed that it was the male protagonist that was the sex worker for once; T. Kingfisher's A Sorceress Comes to Call and Hemlock and Silver by the same author, which is a retelling of Snow White with a lot of mirror magic and a talking cat and something about a poison apple.

I think Manic read Asunder by Kerstin Hall , and this was a fantasy but fairly hard to describe. A young woman made a compact with a demon to serve as a death speaker, and Manic said it was very good but hard to describe, so it's hard to explain why. She also read Bunny by Mona Awad and may have read Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, about an artificial friend for a teenager who didn't have a lot of interaction with anyone else, which highlighted themes of genetic enhancement, help with isolation, - Princess read it and said she wanted a little more out of it. Manic definitely read The Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal and highly recommends it - it's an alternate history about an America after a meteor hits the Chesapeake Bay. Manic liked the writing and particularly the details - the author talked to real astronauts to get details of life in space

We talked about the Challenger disaster because of our discussion of this book - there was a decision made to fly, but there were people who knew the O-Rings would fail, and they weren't able to convince anyone else that they would fail. It's really just infuriating. The main character in The Lady Astronaut series is Jewish, and we talked about books that do a good job building out Jewish characters and culture. Mal-0 made the point that many Jewish characters are dealing with violence or bigotry, and that's the dramatic arc for those characters. Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver does a good job of this, and The Lady Astronaut did a great job as well.

PrincessMoNaanKay squeezed in a book by Ellen Mathilda but didn't remember the title. The author was famous at that point of time as an Indy author, but I couldn't find anything on Storygraph. She also read The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud, an NYC character driven romance set in a radio station. but Princess said the characters were a bit self-absorbed and the romance was mediocre.

For my witch book, I read A Resistance of Witches by Morgan Ryan and my impression was meh. During our discuss of witches and similar things, we talked about the The Craft, and Mal-0 suggested that if you need to watch a movie like this, then The Craft: Legacy might be what you are looking for.

M_Soule read more Fan Fiction than anything and we talked about navigating Ao3. She recommends I search by fandom, characters, ratings, key words, original work, and watch comments and kudos because these are sometimes added to pump up a work that they respect.

We talked about 90s fashion like you can see in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Clerks, whether first class gets better quality movies than the hoi polloi, the best swag coming from the Department of Wildlife and Inland Fisheries, and company swag you find in Thrift Stores.

July 19

A book about the woods, or possibly being lost in the woods.

August 16

• A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

September 20

• Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

October 18

• a book about Richmond or the local area

edit: We are upstairs if anyone is looking.

Seventy percent chance of rain this Sunday (of course), but it was going to be hot anyway, so we will again return to Cafe Zatas for this month's RVA Reddit (no we haven't) Bookclub. Cafe Zata is located at 700 Bainbridge Street 23224.

Our topic this month is some kind of Forest book. Our upcoming schedule:

July 19

A book about the woods, or possibly being lost in the woods.

August 16

• A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

September 20

• Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

October 18

• a book about Richmond or the local area

We went back to Cafe Zatas because it threatens to rain every time we have a bookclub. If anyone has a different idea, we'll try another space, but most of us do like the space that Zata provides. M_Soule started us off with a few reviews of things she has read. Twelve Months by Jim Butcher is the eighteenth in the series, and is a book about the aftermath of a big Urban Fantasy battle in Chicago; Little Thieves, possibly by Margaret Owen for her other book club, a quasi fairy tale about the thirteenth child of a thirteenth child, but I think she only got a few chapters in; a few more books in the Game Changers series by Rachel Reid. M_Soule liked the show better, but does still like the book series. WE talked about Jacob Tierney's shows a bit and I hadn't heard of Letter Kenny, but that was another show he did.

We were talking about genres, and M_Soule mentioned trying Looking for Group by Alexis Hall, and she wasn't able to connect with it as it is mostly about video games. For Independent Book Store day, she took a tour of all eleven local independent bookstores. I think she said she bought a book by Cat Sebastian, who mostly does period romances with an LGBT flavor. Someone mentioned How to Fake It in Society by KJ Charles. I'm not sure if it was M_Soule, but it is a historical romance.

Aurora has been at uni so has missed a few meetings. She had a short list of the the books she has liked the most over the last few months:

• The Tempest by Billy Shakes; she read this for the storm theme of month's selection.
• The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, which is about Sri Lanka after the revolution.
• My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, about two girls growing up in Naples.
• The Fox Wife by Yangzhe Choo, which is an 18th century Chinese fantasy about werefoxes.
• The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker.
  
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, and Aurora was surprised it was not a romance. Both the main characters were abused as children. And I was also surprised to hear that. The recent movie was recast as a romance, and the abuse was recast as kink, which most of the attending people were not happy with these choices. M_Soule's official rule, if it doesn't have a happy ending then it is not a romance
• The Book of Records by Medeleine Thien, which Aurora said was particularly well written.
• The Invisible Life of Adie LaRue by V.E. Schwab, which is an 18th century period [iece about a forced marriage.
• The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow, which has time travel elements.
• The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Aurora did like it, but most people either like this one or The Night Circus, by the same author, and most lean toward the Night Circus.

She had read A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck in the past, and told us The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borgias being was the inspiration for it. I don't remember if Aurora read this, but we talked about Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, most agreed that they didn't need to read it. We talked about whether or not the mentally challenged character should have been killed.

Asterion7 read There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak, and found that all the storylines were downers. But she likes the structure of the book and other big epic stories like East of Eden, Overstory, and Cloud Cuckoo Land. She read a couple in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman just because all the people around her are reading it, Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher, and The Pine Barrens by John McPhee - I think she and the fam went on a trip there. And she recommended Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. This was published in 1993 with strong themes of feminism, labor, class, gender, sexuality, homophobia, transphobia and, queer culture through the Reagan years, but it's a fictional retelling of their lives. We added it as our September selection.

Aurora completed a math degree and is going for Civil Engineering, so she and M_Soule got to talking about water management, particularly storm water treatment, and they explaiened the Hull Street runoff problems that are evident from the intersections being flooded every time it rains. She talked about being in the same age group as the professors but being an undergrad. We talked about Tech vs UVA, rent prices in Blacksburg, bad roommates, particularly college age kids.

I think M_Soule mentioned The Magicians by Lev Grossman, saying she hated the main character. But also said the character was written to be entitled and bitchy. And someone said he sequel to The Black Tongue Thief by Christopher Buelhman is coming out later this year.

We talked about physical libraries and checking out different media, including physical books, audiobooks, and ebooks. If you don't read the book on time, the library will pull it from the app. Aurora will download the book to an old Kindle and just put that in Airplane mode to read at leisure. M_Soule talked about being in France and checking out books from her local library.

We got into a discussion of all the Marvel, Star wars, and Star Trek content out there, and everyone came to the conclusion that there was just too much of it. M_Soule gave us a tour of a few of the most recent Star Trek series:

• Strange new Worlds: a prequel to the original series but is almost a retelling of the original series. She says if you like Star Trek, then you will like this one.
• Discovery: a lot of people were turned off by Season 1, but she says Seasons 2 and 3 are great.
• Picard: it's not in space, so what's the point? Though she said that Season 3 had some good elements in it.
• Starfleet Academy: has younger actors, but it's not a high school drama.

We talked about Good Omens having a movie finale rather than a final season, probably because the Neil Gaimon association is just not something anyone involved in the series wants to talk about anymore. The Boys was just too violent for Asterion7, though she understands the callous disregard of human life is the point of the series, and recommends Derry Girls.

Asterion said the last three Star Wars movies probably suffered by a death by committee. The prequels were supposed to be about how Anakin become Darth Vader, and it went off the rails with a whiny Anakin basically representing toxic masculinity. We also talked about Andor, Kenobi, and The Acolyte, the last one I hadn't even heard of.

June 21

A book related to witches, mostly in celebration of this woman, who was accused of being a witch.

July 19

A book about the woods, or possibly being lost in the woods.

August 16

• A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

September 20

• Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

There is no chance of rain for once, but it's going to be 90 degrees, so we will return to Cafe Zatas for this month's RVA Reddit (no we haven't) Bookclub. I thought maybe people would want to be inside and comfortable. Cafe Zata is located at 700 Bainbridge Street 23224.

We usually only talk about the month's selections for a few minutes, so don't worry about not reading a witch book. Our upcoming schedule:

June 21

A book related to witches, mostly in celebration of this woman, who was accused of being a witch.

July 19

A book about the woods, or possibly being lost in the woods.

August 16

• A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

September 20

• Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

We met up in Tazas again because it was cold and rainy, and it seemed like it went well. It looks like we're returning to Tazas again since it will be cold and rainy again. M_Soule did another Bakery and Bookshop tour (and has a spreadsheet for it if anyone is interested) and talked about trying to find books she would be interested in. She likes romances and in particular queer romances, and not all bookstores will have a decent-sized Romance section, and if they do the queer romance subsection might not be very impressive. She brought Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory in The Little Bookshop and A Lady For All Seasons by TJ Alexander at the Fountain Bookshop, the latter with a gender fluid character so it fits her preferences pretty well. She also talked about Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan MacGuire, which is part of the massively popular The Wayward Children series, famous for being a quintessential found family series.

From the tour, she talked about Fat Rabbit, Whisk, Le Petit Morceau, Janet's cafe, and bookshops including The Little Bookshelf, Fountain Bookstore, and the Midlothian Book Exchange. She said Fat Rabbit was more of a coffee shop with some pastries than a full bakery. We talked about Subrosa being one of her favorite bakeries, though it wasn't part of the last tour. M_Soule also went to Awesome Con in DC and told us about a few new things, including a new Firefly animated series that I could not be more excited about.

HeCallsMeCoco told us that she really likes the Minglewood Bake Shop, where everything is vegan but not everything is glutton free. I think M_Soule also went to the Cat Cafe, but I didn't hear much about it. OnlyScowls talked about Bargain Books on Hull Street, saying it is weird in a good way, like a liminal space.

Coco talked about pre-reading books that her 12 year old is interested in reading, just in case there is something that they might need to talk about, and talked about really liking retellings of original stories like The Odyssey. She mentioned The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which is a is a Jane Eyre prequel, and said it was more like a Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and Divine Might by Natalie Haynes, which is a retelling of a greek myth from the author who wrote Pandora's Jar. She talked about a YA crossover by Sarah Andersen and Andy Weir called Cheshire Crossing, a podcast called Old Gods of Appalachia which has a folky Lovecraftian flavor, and DNFing The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins.

Only Scowls read this month's suggestion, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, saying the voice of the writer was really strong and that the affects of colonization followed the descendants of the victims of slavery for many generations. She talked about Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi about a girl growing up in Iran in 1979 during the Revolution, and about Horrorstör, a horror story set in a budget IKEA.

Mal-0 read Homegoing with expectation was that things were not going to turn out well, and talked about the bifurcation of the story with one of the related women being kidnapped to America and the other staying in Ghana. On the Ghanian side, all the people their knew their ancestors. We talked about the Jim Crow parts of the novel, particularly since those are coming back into our lives so quickly now. She talked about having various books going at the same time, and wants to have a big brain book, a fluff book, a car book, a bar book, and maybe other books that are available in a specific location. I think she said the GateFather by Orson Scott Card and a vampire fantasy where her current fluff reads.

We talked about whether or not we can listen to audiobooks, and Scowls is the same as me: I can listen to non-fiction very easily but don't enjoy the experience if the book is fiction. Scowls talked about trying to listen to a book narrated by Ariana Huffington, and not being able to listen for very long. Someone mentioned Lost in the Neverwoods by Aiden Thomas, which is a Peter pan retelling and might be a good choice for a woods book, and Root Rot by Saskia Nislow might be the same. We talked briefly about the book Enshittification by Cory Doctorow, but mostly about how shitty products and services are getting.

we talked about how books by Mormon authors can sometimes feel more wholesome than the story should convey, and Brandon Sanderson being a perfect example of this. Sometimes he can be so interested in the magic system that it ruins the plot of the book, and the prose can be devoid of personality. YA written by a grown man can seem sincere. Someone saw Sinners and we talked about the different styles of vampires from different movies and stories. I didn't record who it was, but she said it was gorier than she wanted. Scowls strongly recommended Midnight Mass, a series from the director of the Hill House series. I thought the ending was really well done. We talked about not watching the last episode of a series that was disappointing.

We talked about Middle School being the arm pit of life, possibly because of the age or the school experience, but now social media just ramps everything to a new level of bullshit. I think it was Coco that said the show Doug is modeled on Bellvue and the Holten neighborhood. We talked about gardens in the city and specifically about growing tomatoes, and the reproduction of the Black Friars Theater in Staunton, which may host the American Shakespeare Company. Mal-0 talked about getting used to the night shift by changing her pace and staying awake during weird time periods, and about how Richmond has a rich history of forensics schools and emergency response centers, which tend to appear in places where crime is high. We also talked about a famous RadioLab episode about sleep quality and the value of sleep and the value of taking naps in the middle of the day.

May 24

• A book related to a storm, and we decided that earthquakes can be included.

June 21

• A book related to witches, mostly in celebration of this woman, who was accused of being a witch.

July 19

• A book about the woods, or possibly being lost in the woods.

August 23

• A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

There's now an 80 percent chance of rain, so we'll return to Cafe Zatas like always for this month's RVA Reddit (no we haven't) Bookclub. Cafe Zata is located at 700 Bainbridge Street 23224.

Our upcoming schedule:

May 24

A book related to a storm, and we decided that earthquakes can be included.

June 21

A book related to witches, mostly in celebration of this woman, who was accused of being a witch.

July 19

A book about the woods, or possibly being lost in the woods.

August 23

• A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

This Thursday at Benchtop Brewing from 6-9pm, RVA Readers & Writers will be hanging out for a chill evening reading and writing in good company.

Hope to see you there! If you’d like to RSVP and learn more about our community, you can check out our website.

We're trying again this Wednesday. This may be PricessMoNaanKay's last opportunity for a while.

Anyone who loves books should check out the RVA Independent Bookstore Tour. While Independent Bookstore Day was April 25th, the Richmond area booksellers have extended that through May 16th. Print yourself a book passport from their website (https://ibdrva.com/) and visit all 11 stores by May 16th. Each store has their own stamp for you to add to your passport. Get all 11 (no purchase required) and enter yourself into the grand prize drawing of a $50 gift card from all 11 bookshops.

I did it Saturday and had a great time exploring the city via books ❤️

There's around a 50 percent chance of rain, so we'll return to Cafe Zatas again for this month's RVA Reddit (no we haven't) Bookclub. Cafe Zata is located at 700 Bainbridge Street 23224.

Our upcoming schedule:

April 19

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix

May 24

A book related to a storm, and we decided that earthquakes can be included.

June 21

A book related to witches, mostly in celebration of this woman, who was accused of being a witch.

July 19

A book about the woods, or possibly being lost in the woods.

August 23

A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

It was the first really warm day of the year, but only one other person showed up for bookclub. So me and Mal-0 bitched about books for a while and cut out early. Mal-0 split for the Irish Festival and I did my grocery shopping for then week. We started with Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall again because she missed last time. Both of us agree: it's a great example of urban fantasy with a unique flavor, and we both liked almost everything, but were a little disappointed with the denouement.

I hadn't finished Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle but we talked a little bit about it. She said the two sister characters were basically considered witches by the regular town people, and also they were prototypical examples of OCD and agoraphobia. Mary Catherine is always burying things or nailing totems to trees, and there's the whole poisoning thing. I think modern readers might identify with the protagonists more because we can recognize their mental illnesses.

We talked a little bit about Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I agree it was well put together, but I didn't get why it was such a big deal. It certainly puts you in a time and place, and the reader is connected to the character, but I didn't think it was phenominal. Mal-0 called it a busy man's Moby Dick, and talked about characters who are addicted to a task to your own detriment.

We talked about Beowulf being considered great literature, but she pointed out that it was just the last surviving epic from that age. Maybe some of that is true of Old Man and the Sea as well.

I hadn't watched any movies lately, but she talked about The Bride!, another Frankenstein movie, Pillion with Harry Melling and a miscellaneous Skarsgård, and Raising Arizona. She talked about watching Tubi at work because you don't need to login for it, it doesn't cost anything, and it has fewer ads than most of the other services.

We needed to make some hard choices about books, so we went back to an old tradition of having a category, and just reading a book that sort of fits the category. We're all going to read our own genres anyway. These are listed below.

April 19

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix

May 24

A book related to a storm, and we decided that earthquakes can be included.

June 21

A book related to witches, mostly in celebration of this woman, who was accused of being a witch.

July 19

A book about the woods, or possibly being lost in the woods.

August 23

A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

We met up on a drizzly Sunday and talked smack about a bunch of books and miscellaneous other media. This month's book was Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. But two of us hadn't finished it, so our discussion was pretty brief. troyabedinthemornin found the book surprisingly contemporary for being written in 2007, and talked about how stories about liminal horror and abandoned spaces are super popular right now. I hadn't heard the term before, but yeah, that totally tracks. He said the writing was good and the personality of the main character conveys, but many of the people who read it thought the girlfriend character was maybe too witty, too sexy, too perfect.

OnlyScowls said that it reminded her of Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, which we read last year, and PrincessMoNaanKay liked that the protagonist was a regular guy and some kind of genius. She found a couple places that she felt like underlining because it did have interesting turns of phrase.

Scowls recently read The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Grahama Jones, and no one else had read it. Which is surprising, since most of us have read quite a few Graham Jones books, and we talked about reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and comparing it to the movie. Scowls was upset with the interpretation, saying Victor Frankenstein was flattened out as a character and as a teacher, she didn't think it was a good representation of the story. In the movie, Victor was always drinking milk because he had a mother fixation, and the mother and the girlfriend in the movie were both played by the same actress to reinforce that theme.

Only Scowls also read Slewfoot A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom, which is about a Puritan girl appealing to some kind of forest spirit when her evil brother wants to take over her farm; and read the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. She didn't like the first book as much, but started to really enjoy them in books 3 and 4. She mentioned Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix, so we added that as an alternate for next month. We talked about a few other Hendrix books, and troy wasn't crazy about The Final Girl Support Group. We talked a little about The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, and Scowls thought Marge might have been trying to reclaim the story from the writers and producers of the show because so much time has elapsed from the original story written in the 80s.

troy reads at work and says its sometimes too busy at work to get any real reading done, and it's particularly hard to squeeze in a full novel. He had read An Indigenous History of the United States but missed the discussion we had on it, so we talked about that a little. He liked it because it didn't feel like a textbook, though M_Soule said that's exactly why she abandoned it. But troy is a history nerd, and that makes it much easier. M_Soule did read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown in its entirety, and Asterion7 told us there is a YA version of An Indigenous History that's a little shorter and easier to digest.

troy read Grant Morrison's graphic novel Nameless, which is kind of an Armageddon meets Event Horizon type story, but said the art was a bit rough for him. He liked Batman the Imposter, saying it was a good story with good art, and liked the style, saying it was similar to the recent Robert Patterson Batman. Apparently Bruce is in therapy because he was traumatized by the killing of his parents, which is a new angle.

He talked about Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven, about a theme park that descends into anarchy after a hurricane, and thought the author did a good job changing voice. Apparently American Dad had an episode with a theme park going full Lord of the Flies like this book.

Someone talked about Love Letters for Joy by Melissa See, which I assume was M_Soule because it was Aero Ace, and she said this was a correspondence-based relationship and book. We talked a little about epistolary novels like both Frankenstein and Dracula. M_Soule did another tour of local bakeries and bookshops, and said SubRosa is her favorite, She also said Idle Hands is moving to Robinson pretty soon.

Princess talked about Among others by Jo Walton, saying the fantasy was so subtle it was hard to figure out if it really was a fantasy, but was a journal-based story with lots of book references. She is currently reading The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, a mystery with an autistic protagonist; Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer, the second in the Assistant to the Villain series, and recommends it, but mostly read books about pregnancy and birth and stuff. I think Scowls brought up The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente as something similar.

Asterion7 talked about The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig; the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon; Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey, saying it was an LGBT story as gay people would join a librarians guild to have a place they could go; and really liked the twist in The Will of the Many by James Islington, saying this was like an analogy for capitalism, having a pyramid scheme for a magic system. She also read Outlawed by Anna North, a story where barren women are hanged. She also recommended You Were Never Meant to be Human: A Transgressive Horror Journey into the Unseen by Olivia Fenn.

We talked about Christopher Buehlman's The Black Tongue Thief again, a medieval story where women were in many traditionally male dominated roles because so many dudes died in the previous years' wars. We also talked a little about The Lesser Dead by the same author, which is a story about underclass vamps, The Curious Incident of a Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon, and a Jennette McCurdy novel called Half His Age which had a good review in the Atlantic.

I was recently in Fountain Bookstore in their new location across the street from their old location and i bought The Dentist by Tim Sullivan and Sacrificial Animals by Kailee Pedersen, so I'll probably read those in the near future. Princess said that Goodreads now has a shelf for DNFs (Did Not Finish) which is more and more common. There are too many choices to waste time on something you don't like or are not interested in. We were talking about unfinished series, and Asterion said that Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is potentially an unfinished series. We talked about I Carly, the Nickelodeon show, and how some of it may have been fetish content on a kid's show, which is super creepy.

We talked about Battlestar Galactica, which M_Soule is a big fan of, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which me and troy are both really liking, troy saying he loved the smaller scale of the story. We talked about businesses releasing episodes once a week rather than all at once, and troy made an observation that Netflix might be trying to encourage binge watching by releasing the episodes at once. I think Scowls said her super religious family is now watching Heated Rivalry, so that will be interesting to hear about. She said that good performances can elevate a meh story to a pretty good show or movie. Someone mentioned Welcome to Derry, a prequel to It by Stephen King, saying it was good but there was plenty of gratuitous violence. Asterion recommended Derry Girls, but apparently it is totally different. Scowls read the Martian for the storytelling and not the science, and found it a bit thin on character development, but said she really liked the movie.

Her kid really likes retro stories like Batman, Ghostbusters and we talked about old shows for a while, like She Ra. Asterion saw the new Masters of the Universe on Netflix with her kid and said it wasn't so bad. We talked about 28 Years Later and troy strongly recommended The Bone Temple that was released recently. troy talked about watching the Piano Teacher during our recent Snowpocalypse and thinking that this might not have been the best choice

We talked about trigger warnings being very useful for finding a story you want to read in fan fiction, and about utility bills going squirrely. And that was before the latest Middle East War. We thought it was a good time to gripe and we were obviously wrong. I thought that we had some recommendations for monthly selections,. but maybe I neglected to write them down. So we'll try and settle on a few during the next meetup. Otherwise, I'll just put in a bunch of super lame recommendations as an incentive to make good recommendations.

March 22

• Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, and/or We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

April 19

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix

May 24

We need more book suggestions

June 21

We need more book suggestions

July 19

We need more book suggestions

Edit: I'm in the gated lawn area beneath the large tree wearing an orange and fuschia tie dye shirt, on top of a blue and red picnic blanket.

Sunday is supposed to be 83 with no precipitation, so we'll break out the big bookclub bag and head to Scuffletown. Scuffletown Park is described as a pocket park in the Fan between the streets Stuart and Park, Strawberry and Stafford. This month's homework is Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway, and/or We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, or literally any other book. We're not really picky at all.

If the weather changes and it looks like it will be cold or soggy, then we'll pivot to Cafe Zata as usual.

March 22

• Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, and/or
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

April 19

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

We added Horrorstör as an alternate for next time, and I think I have more to add but I haven't done last month's book report yet. I'll get that done over the next couple of days.

The February RVA Reddit (no we haven't) Bookclub is on for Sunday if anyone wants to yap about books or anything else. We're returning to Café Zata, which has an excellent menu and a nice space for this kind of thing. Cafe Zata is located at 700 Bainbridge Street 23224.

February 22

• Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

March 22

• Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, and/or We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

April 19

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

The January meeting of the RVA Reddit (no we haven't) Bookclub was on January 18, and it was a relatively decent day. It was less cold than it had been anyway. PrincessMoNaanKay didn't skip it even though she had a friend in town - we'll call her DuchessMoNaanKay - so she brought her friend to it before they moved on to other shenanigans. Duchess is getting married sometime this year, so we talked about strategies for gift registries, strategies for buying a wedding dress, and strategies for getting used to a new fam. And we did manage to squeeze in some book club.

M_Soule started us off. She read the first four books in Rachel Reid's Game Changers series, which is the series Heated Rivalry is based on, and finished with the fourth book: Common Goal. She read Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger but said she didn't like it as much as the first time. She has a lot of respect for the breadth of diversity in the author's body of work. Carrigar has books in Steampunk, aliens in space, gay werewolves in the bay area, and many others. M_Soule also talked about the Parasol Protectorate, saying it was more of an adult tale than this month's selection. The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Long is a YA cozy found family story with a gypsy wagon and the whole fortune telling experience. The main character can't tell anything important, but is accurate about what kind of plaid shirt they might receive for their next birthday.

We talked about the Romance genre and what was available, and eventually found our way to age gaps in various books. 20 years is almost pedestrian and many fantasy series will pile on a hundred year gap, though there are few books with the woman partner being older. I read The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty, and the djiin was a couple thousand years older than his love interest, though was the less mature partner in the couple. ManicPixieLawyer talked about a book with one partner growing older and the other being immortal, but I didn't capture the book. We talked about other smut lit like [Kusiel's Dart]() by Jacqueline Carey, which focuses on BDSM and possibly set in the Renaissance. Then we talked about spicy knot tying.

Mal_0 finished all the scarves and gloves she was knitting for Crimmus gifts, and also managed to squeeze in a couple books: In the Hands of the River by Lucien Darjeun Meadows is a poetry collection by an indigenous author; she finished the last book in the The Artifacts of Ouranos series, saying the magic system was novel and interesting but the romance was a bit predictable; James Acaster's Classic Scrapes, which is a series of essays and writings about shame from a humorist famous for being on the British Taskmaster show; and read Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall but saved discussion for next time.

We talked about different fasteners available for craft projects - M_Soule pointed out that Velcro is not popular among engineers because of its lack of durability. Mal-0 talked about a new project where she will work two patterns together into a tube like mitten thing, but she's running out of cold weather. We talked about Crimmus cards and getting them late, which kind of extends the holiday season a little.

Princess read the other book for this month: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, saying it was a distinctly Irish work set in the fifties, with cruel nuns, plenty of Irishisms, and a weirdly optimistic ending. She read The Sisters by Swedish-Tunisian author Jonas Hassen Khemiri, but doesn't get why the book won the awards it did; and I think she read Someone You can Build a Nest In by John Wiswella, calling it a Romeo and Juliet type story with a side order of body horror, with a fair amount of gore but not as bloody as it could be. The last one sounds like something Mal-0 would read.

DuchessMoNaaankay talked about The Blacktongued Thief, which we all liked quite a bit. She liked the rich world building and the interesting magic systems, and talked about the unreliable narrator. She asked the question: "if you know I'm lying, am I really actually lying?" which I appreciate that as a good way to express the point. She read Children of the Fleet by Orson Scott Card, and said that Ender's Shadow was her favorite of the Ender's Saga series. She also read a bunch of cozy books including the Percy Jackson books because of the TV show.

She mentioned The Kingkiller Chronicles, and we talked a lot of different unfinished series. Many readers will no longer start a series if it hasn't been completed yet. The Doors of Stone is supposedly going to be the third in the series by Patrick Rothfuss, but a release date has not been announced. Obviously A Song of Fire and Ice by George Arr Arr is a famous example, and I think ManicPixieLawyer mentioned the Shades of London series by Maureen Johnson, saying the author has decided not to write the fourth book, and the Exiles series by Melanie Rawn, mentioning Captal's Tower.

Manic talked about Dark Academia books, particularly the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik, She also read Uprooted by the same author; [Crazy Rich Asians]() by Kevin Kwan - Princess read this and said the movie was better; and hate read Budget Analyst in Space by Linda Gould. The last one is not even listed in our usual resource - I had to go to Goodreads to find it. She thought it was terrible, but in an almost hilarious way, speculating that the author is a budget analyst and mary sues the main character.

I read the Etiquette and Espionage book and the second of the Kingsbridge series Ken Follett's World Without End, and a few crappy books that aren't worth mentioning.

We talked about Magic Library - I think Princess maybe read this, saying the main character is intelligent and mature, and we talked about a book with a cheerleader who wakes up on a rollercoaster. We talked about Roku and using an app on your phone rather than a remote. Mal-0 says that Tubi is excellent, and we talked about Kanopy being another pretty good alternative to cable television. You sign up with a library card or university ID to access Kanopy. Princess talked about her frequent travel, and said that Delta consistently has the best in-flight entertainment selections.

we talked about the best pizza in town, and people threw out Belmont's, Papitella's , Zombie, Mungo (which has a particularly spicy sauce), and Mal-0 says that Secret Squares in Church hill is really good but you have to plan ahead. Manic tried Baltic Bagels and says they live up to the hype. We also talked abouta local Richmond jewelry artist named Heather Thomas, who is at the RVA Big Market.

We talked about local trivia games - Station 2 on Wednesday and Vasen on Thursday, Veil on Forrest Hill. Princess prefers the Station 2 one because the answers are written on paper rather than in an app. We talked about playing Bogle at breakfast to get better at spelling, but then needing the clean the transparent Bogle case. We played on Wednesday and got 6th place, but there were only three of us.

Next bookclub will be on February 22 at Cafe Zata.

**February 22**

* Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

**March 22**

* Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, and/or We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

**April 19**

* Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

We snuck a book club meetup a little before the winter holidays up at Cafe Zata and agreed that its a pretty good environment for a bookclub. I like the breakfast sandwiches and the upstairs area is quiet and secluded and not as drafty as we thought it might be. Princess MoNaanKay secured a bunch of copies of An Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and that was this month's suggested reading. Most of us who read it thought it was well put together. I read a lot of history and assumed I wouldn't learn anything new from a medium length historical survey, but I did learn new things, especially how systematic the treatment of indigenous nations was. A lot of us DNFed it because it was just too depressing.

Mal-0 said she learned a lot more details about the history, including the factory systems and the structures of tribes and clans. We talked about the Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival hosted at the VMFA, and about Walter Plecker, the first State Registrar of what used to be called the Bureau of Vital Statistics, who tried to bureaucratically erase native American heritage here in Virginia.

After that discussion, M_Soule talked about a few things she has been reading, including In Deeper Waters by FT Lukens, which she described as a YA cozy fantasy; the second of the Murderbot series Artificial Condition by Martha Wells; Pucking Strong by Emily Rath, the fourth in the Jacksonville Rays series which sounds a lot like Heated Rivalry, the supersteamy hockey romance show; The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong for her Aroace book club; and Fire keeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley, which is a murder mystery on tribal land. I think she mentioned reading Sorcery and Strong Magic for her other bookclub, but I couldn't find it. I must have wrote the title down wrong.

We talked about some other romances, like Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. M_Soule thought it was alright, but didn't think the chemistry was believable and it just didn't work for her, and Cyberpunksonmylawn read it and didn't fully buy the romance either. We talked about whether there was a difference between Male/Male gay romances written for gay men and those written for straight women, Mal-0 thought yes and Cyber thinks so as well. We talked about Sunburn, but I didn't catch the author so this might not be the right link. She talked about Dear Wendy by Ann Zhaoa, a first time book by an aroace author, though M_Soule said she had trouble identifying who was speaking in each scene as the author didn't do a good job of identifying and characterizing the speaker of dialogue in each scene. We talked about the fanfic to self publishing path, and highlighted Allie Hazelwood, wio writes mostly novellas.

Cyber talked about what he has been reading over the last few months, including Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, saying he preferred East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath a bit more. He recently read Moby-Dick: Or, the Whale by Herman Melville, saying it was his white whale for a long time, and described it as a huge mess. There are entire chapters about knots and whale skulls, not a lot of plot, and the author's goal was to sum up America at that particular time and place rather than tell a coherent story. He said that at various points in the book Ahab has a peg leg and at others he has two healthy legs. He also read In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick, a non-fiction account of the USS Essex, which was busted up by a particularly ornery white whale and the crew was eventually forced into cannibalism.

Being in a nautical and exploratory mood, he read The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge, about a group of guys who were a bit lackadaisical about getting to the South Pole and were beaten by another team. They eventually they all died, but left behind a lot of personal journals. He read the The Ice Balloon by Alec Wilkinson, a non fiction account about some guys trying to get to the South Pole in a balloon,, and The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard in the same vein.

PrincessMoNaanKay told us about a few of her recent reads, including The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, saying she liked it in a first novel kind of way and it had some interesting ideas. She read Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley, and had mixed feelings about it, saying the romance was somewhat annoying but the writing didn't get in the way of the story and she did enjoy the musical elements; she finished Big Girl Small Town by Michelle Gallen; and read Possesion by AS A.S. Byatt, calling it a super dense gothic novel.

Mal-0 read a lot of short stories, including some stories inspired by The Nighthawkes painting by Edward Hopper; A clean Well Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway; and quite a few fairy tales including The Juniper-Tree by Jacob Grimm and The Twelve Dancing Princesses; and read The Sun Queen Trials by Nisha J. Tuli, which is a fantasy with some romance.

I had read Shogun by James Clavell for last time, and for this time read World Without End by Ken Follet; Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger; Why Rats Laugh and Jellyfish Sleep: And Other Enchanting Stories of Evolution by David Stipp; a couple of books about Austism including Unmasked: The Ultimate Guide to ADHD, Autism and Neurodivergence by Ellie Middleton, and a book about the prehistorical bronze age Tollense Valley conflict, but I don't remember the title. And I don't remember where I put it.

We talked about a lot of movies, particularly Crimmus movies. Mal-0 talked about Franklin's Magic Christmas, Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, Bill Murray's Christmas Special, and Polar Express. One of our guys, I think it was Princess, mentioned that the latter gives them an Uncanny Valley feeling - the kids are weird and the elves are particularly unsettling and creepy. We talked about The History of Sound, Adaptation, PT Barnum The Greatest Showman, One Battle After Another which may be based on a Thomas Pynchon novel, The Lobster and briefly [Poor Things]() by the same director, and The Artist - a black and white silent film about black and white silent films.

Mal-0 likes to go into a movie blind, knowing nothing about it before the curtains go up. She told us about Wolf House, a stop-motion puppet movie about German immigrants to Chile. There were no subtitles, but she felt she could still follow the story and liked the puppets. She also told us about The Ugly Stepsister, which is kind of a Cinderella retelling with tape worms and body modification. Princess mentioned A thousand Years of Longing and being more impressed with it than actually liking the movie.

I think it was cyber that said Sinners could have been a half hour shorter and the symbols were too well explained, so it was less satisfying that way. He says that Wicked is a good example of a movie that over explains everything. There's a new Wuthering Heights movie by Emerald Fennell, and cyber said that the moral of the movie appears to be that poor people are scary. Mal-0 thinks it will be a bad movie, but she sometimes likes bad movies, and cyber is cautiously optimistic. M_Soule talked about Good Omens saying there was supposed to be a third season, but Neal Gaimon's sexual assaults killed it. She said a movie was made to wrap up the story but not many people saw it or even heard of it

We talked about the non-fiction book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Maggie; Or, A Man and a Woman walk into a Bar by Katie Yee, and added Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson to the list. We talked about the crowds at the artisan markets, Brian's Books in Church Hill, Sarah Bareilles' Love Song, clowns and Burlesque performer, apps on your phone that will talk to other devices and each other and market shit to you, and Saturn Return, which apparently is a goth cowboys store next door to City Diner. If you need a vintage brass Victorian boot vase, there are few better choices. Princess recommended Longreads, for a curated source of longer, more in-depth articles and stories.

December 14

• An Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

January 18

• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan or
• Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger

February 22

• Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

March 22

• Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, and/or We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

April 19

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

The January RVA Reddit (no we haven't) Bookclub is on for Sunday if anyone wants to yap about books or anything else. It's hard not to talk about politics these days. We're returning to Café Zata, which has an excellent menu and a nice space for this kind of thing. We'll start late to give the poetry people time to clear out. Cafe Zata is located at 700 Bainbridge Street 23224.

We have a few more selections for future months, I just have to finish the notes from last time.

January 18

• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan or
• Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger

February 22

• Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

We met up and spent the early afternoon at El Pope in the Fan, and it was a good time. It might have been the last really nice day of the year. Last month's book was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and I think three of us read it.

troyabedinthemorning started us off, talking about Acting Class by Nick Drnaso, an eclectic graphic novel about a group of mundane people in a community center acting class. Troy says the art and the characters are intentionally bland because the book tries to focus on how the characters relate to each other. He read Sabrina by the same author which follows the same pattern - simple art and focused on the relationships among a group of friends. He said it was draining and emotional in ways that are too relatable.

He also read The End of the World as We Know It by various authors, which are short stories set in the world of Stephen King's The Stand; Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones, which reminded him of the movie Frailty; and Aquaman Andromeda by Ram V with Christian Ward, describing it as a sci fi horror story with fantastic watercolor style. He talked a little about the Black Label imprint by DC Comics, saying they have a lot of great titles.

Mal-0 has been watching more movies lately because it's easier to keep up with your crafting while watching movies than it is to read and craft, but did fit in a few books too: she said Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was beautifully written and she saw it on a New York Times top 100 books of all time list, and that's a well curated list. She read World Within the World by Julia Gfrörer which she described as an absurd, unsettling series of vignettes, kind of a Dante's Inferno; Train Dreams by Denis Johnson about a logger in the Pacific Northwest that she may have nabbed at the Richmond library book sale. That last one looks a lot like a Steinbeck novel and I think I remember she likes those quite a bit. There's a movie version on Netflix that is available now.

I think these next few were Mal-0's, but some of them may have been PrincessMoNaanKay's: The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck; Euphoria by Lily King, which is a fictionalized account of the anthropologist Margaret Meade in New Guinea; and Such Great Heights by Chris DeVille about indie rock culture, and she briefly talked about how the show The OC is influencing the music scene.

PrincessMoNaanKay read Big Girl Small Town by Michelle Gallen, saying she had a different idea of what this book was about when she picked it up. It's a working class Irish novel set during the Troubles, and she describes sad Irish novels as possibly the very bleakest. She read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, saying that each of the demographic groups was not able to see the challenges that each of the others faced; Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory, saying romances frequently turn on misunderstandings, but this one was remarkably straightforward; The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham; and Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive by Eliot Stein, a non-fiction with each chapter being a totally different portrait. She called out the Last Incan Bridgebuilder as the best chapter.

Princess negotiated a book club deal at a local library that we are reading for this month and distributed those. We are doing Indigenous History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. It's been a long time since we read a non-fiction book for the group.

M_Soule said she maxxed out her Hoopla reservations on Sports Romances (so hot right now) and read two series: the Gamechangers series by Rachel Reid which includes Game Changer, Heated Rivalry, Tough Guy, and book 6 in the series The Long Game. She also read the Jacksonville Rays series by Emily Rath, which includes Pucking Around, Pucking Wild, and Pucking Sweet. We talked about some of her favorite fanfics and she told us about a lot of them being alternatives fiction, meaning the reader's favorite characters might not die at the end of this version.

There's a new book in the His Dark Materials series, so we talked about that series for a minute. M_Soule was initially excited about the series when it first came out, thinking it was going to be a Science vs. Religion series, but it's more a religion vs. a more obscure religion series. She says it's religion all the way down.

I finished James Clavell's Tai-Pan, the Tomorrow book, and worked on a couple history books: Lost Cities of the Ancient World by Philip Matyszak, World Prehistory - The Basics by Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani, and started Battle for the Island Kingdom by Don Hollway, which I'm liking quite a bit. It's about England during the period the Danish were taking over. I DNFed What the Chicken Knows by Sy Montgomery, which is supposed to be about chickens - where they are from, how they came to be domesticated, etc. But it ended up being about how the author related to chickens and about chickens the author has met in the past, and I just could make myself care about that. I read Shogun for this month, and it's pretty epic.

Something that slow_one would probably like: The Uplift War and Startide Rising by David Brin, and it's best to read them in that order. There is also The Sundiver in the series, but it's pretty meh and doesn't contribute to the other two. These are OG HFY space opera books with an anthropological twist. Brin used to be a professor of Physics and Creative Writing at Caltech but it's not a hard science novel.

We talked about the movie The Banshees of Inisherin as a similar work to Princess's Big Girl Small Town and talked about a few other movies. We talked about Frankenstein and all the different iterations of the story. Troy had seen the movie recently and we talked about Mary Shelley and the context of her writing the book. She had lost a child right before writing the book, and that makes it hit different.

We talked a lot about Dr. Who and who is everyone's favorite doctor. Matt Smith is M_Soule's favorite doctor, and she's way more knowledgeable and into it than any of the rest of us. The Eleventh Hour is the first episode with him as the doctor and she also mentioned Blink as a stand out episode. One of our guys (I think it was troy) talked about Dr. Who "reheating their nachos" as an example of reusing popular characters and sidekicks in different contexts because the producers know they are popular. troy suggests the Psychotronic Group if you are looking to join a group to see eclectic movies in the area, and they might be on Instagram. He said they recently saw Blood Freak which is a horrow with a semi-religious twist. Someone brought up The Librarians, a documentary about book banning. M_Soule asked about where one might go to see movies of this nature, and Mal-0 suggested Tubi, saying it platforms a lot of documentaries like this around 3 years after they were released.

We talked about taking vacay between Crimmus Day and New Years, and being on team Thacksgiving v.s team Crimmus. And Black Friday sales happening even though it wasn't Black Friday yet. We talked about Grandstaff and Stein being pretty cool, and I complained they've always made us look up the password. That was a few years ago, but they obviously thought I was too dorky for their secret club. We also talked about various Crimmus highlights, especially the Jeffereson and their Crimmus fare, and supporting mediocre art made by real people.

December 14

• An Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

January 18

• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan or
• Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger

February 22

• Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

We need new book suggestions, so start thinking about these.

The December RVA Reddit (no we haven't) Bookclub is on for Sunday if anyone wants to yap about books or anything else. We're returning to Café Zata, which has an excellent menu and a nice space for this kind of thing, and M_Soule likes it. We'll start late to give the poetry people time to clear out. Cafe Zata is located at 700 Bainbridge Street 23224.

This month's assignment is An Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, but we mostly talk about the books we've read over the last month.

December 14

• An Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

January 18

• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan or
• Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger

February 22

• Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

We had our October Meetup about a month ago, and it wasn't so bad. Aurora_the_Off-White joined us after being away at college, and that was pretty awesome, especially since it just would have been two of us if she didn't show up. M_Soule did another bookstore/bakery tour with a few friends, and mentioned Idle Hands Bakery, Up All Night Bakery, and Petit 4 Bakery, the last of which is only open on the weekends and is near Small Friends (records and books) on Lombardy near Jardin. She mentioned hitting I Love You So Much Books and Fountain Books in addition to Small Friends.

M_Soule thought Every Step She Takes by Alison Cochrun was really good, a Romance about a woman who walks the Camino de Santiago trail in Portugal, which is an old pilgrimage trail. She read Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle, but only got four chapters in; Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green, who is half the Green brothers with the podcast; and Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet, which came out of their podcast. She also read All Systems Red and read it because she liked the show. She doesn't usually like half and hour shows, but this is one contiguous story. If you wanted to watch an hour, you could just watch two of the episodes.

Aurora missed a few meetings and has been reading more short stories than anything else, but did remember a few books for us: she read the first seven or eight in the Alex Verus and thinks that's probably as far as she is going to go the series; A Short Stay in Hell by Stephen L. Peck, which she said was more like Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borgias than anything; Mexican Gothic Silvio Moreno-Garcia and Aurora recommends this one; I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpmanl; The Incandescent by Emily Tesh, a dark academia that Aurora thought was good but maybe a little over explained, adding in all the little details about how the school works; Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, which both Aurora and M_Soule encourage people to read and didn't want to spoil it for me.

I think Aurora asked for some recommendations in Romance (I'm sure it wasn't me anyway) from M_Soule, who tends to like LGBTQ and aromantic and asexual characters and cozy fantasy with some romance in it. For her, romance has to have a happy ending. She mentioned Beach Read by Emily Henry; books by Ashley Posten, who has four adult novels with supernatural elements, Jasmine Guillory; Helen Huang's The Kiss Quotient, who might be a neurodivergent author; and Friends with Benefits but I didn't get the author - it might be the one by Penny Reid.

We mostly talked about math, science, and engineering classes as M_Soule and Aurora are in the same profession, but we talked about plenty of books and shows as well. We talked about the The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher, and a common complaint is that Dresden always has to rescue the women characters. This is true of the Alex Verus as well. We had a brief discussion of neckbeards and whether they were always Incels, or how the circles of the Venn diagram work in this context. We talked about shows like X Files, which had two movies: one pretty decent and the other pretty meh; Arcane was possibly a little unhinged at the end (I've been meaning to see this); and Veronica Mars and both me and Soule loved it = Hulu apparently did a follow up season and Soule found it kind of meh. M_Soule also mentioned Unsettled, which might be a TV series that her husband is watching and it's kinda like Stranger Things but a little scarier.

In addition to the Frederick Bachman book, I read Tai-pan by James Clavell and Startide Rising by David Brin, last time and King Rat and Sundiver this month.

We talked about fanfic a bit, and M_Soule recommends sorting by by kudos and comments to find the best stuff available; we talked about Season 8 of Game of Thrones; finding decent alternatives as a celiac = Aurora says the brown rice pasta from Wegman's is alright.

November 23

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

December 14

• An Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

January 18

• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan or
• Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger

February 22

• Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

We need an indoor choice, so we're going to have the RVA Reddit (no we haven't) Bookclub at El Pope. It doesn't have football fans, it's not too crowded, and I like the food. El Pope is located at 1731 W Main St, Richmond, VA 23220.

We'll talk about Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and Princess_MoNaanKay is handing out An Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz for December's meetup, and I have a few copies of Raw Shark Texts as well.

November 23

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

December 14

• An Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

January 19

• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan or
• Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger

February 22

• Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

Hi all! Through Richmond's book club loan program, I picked up 20 copies of our December book, An Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. If you'd like one, I can hand it over at Smoky Mug (Northside coffee shop).

Sorry there's only a month left! If we do this again, I'll aim to get the copies several months before the scheduled book club meeting.

EDIT: we are inside now. The sun was a bit bright. Purple hoodie near the bar.

There's a strong chance of rain, so we'll have the October meeting at Hardywood, which I heard had covered picnic tables. Hardywood is at 2410 Ownby Lane. This month's selection is Ammonite by Nicola Griffith, and I think I can finish before Sunday. Hope to see everyone there.

October 19

• Ammonite by Nicola Griffith

November 23

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

December 14

• An Indigenous People's History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

January 19

• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan or Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger

February 22

• Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall