Chapter 1 - Happy New Year!

I hope this post finds everyone happy and healthy and looking forward to a fresh new year of reading! After having some time off the last two weeks I am revved up and ready to get back to telling you about books. There is also much to tell you about how I spent my Christmas vacation but I'll save that for a later post. In the meantime, there are so many good books out there and this year even more opportunities to indulge in my favorite pastime.

As you know I coordinate the Myrtle Beach Book Club. If you have any interest you can find us on Meetup.com. We meet monthly and we actually do discuss our books. It is a great group with members from many walks of life but we all have a common interest - our love of reading. We have put together our list of books for 2023 and as I am often asked what is my book club reading, they are as follows.

January

The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni - I just finished reading this coming of age story and I have to say there is a lot to discuss in this novel. Dugoni is well known for his thrillers but this story about Sam Hill, a man with ocular albinism packs a punch. I'm really looking forward to discussing this with everyone.

February

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb - I read this a few years ago and am excited to reread it and finally get to chat about it. Lori Gottlieb is a therapist whose own world is crashing down around her. She finds a therapist for herself and finds that some of her clients' problems are hers as well.

March

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt - This has been on my TBR pile for awhile. After Tova Sullivan's husband dies she begins to work as a night shift cleaner at the local aquarium. She makes the acquaintance of the giant Pacific octopus there, Marcellus. They become friends and he helps to solve the mysterious disappearance of her son thirty years earlier.

April

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - A group of septuagenarians, a retirement home, cold cases to solve, and a fresh murder make for an extremely entertaining book. This is being made into a movie by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment Group.

May

Hail Mary by Andy Weir - The latest by the author of The Martian, this novel is another sci-fi adventure. This ones centers on an astronaut who awakens from a long sleep to find himself the only survivor on his ship and with a mission to save humanity.

June

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio - As you can tell we do read quite a few different genres from fiction to memoir to fantasy to mystery to science fiction and this would be considered social science. Writer Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to go across the country and get stories from the undocumented who live in our country. Politics aside, it should be an interesting book.

That's it for the first six months, more to follow next week. In the meantime, are you in a bookclub? What are you reading this year?