In the Club 1/20/21 – Newsletters Dev

Nibbles and Sips

It’s a little nippy here in Portland so I’m craving the comfort of soups. This week it’s going to albondigas, a Mexican soup full of veggies and fluffy, delicious meatballs. There are more complicated versions, this is just the simple version I grew up with.

A package of ground beef or turkey
1 egg
Half cup of par-cooked rice (give or take, and use cooked if that’s what you have)
Chicken bouillon powder
Veggies: 3 carrots (peeled and cut into 1-inch rounds) 2 zucchini or Mexican squash, (cut into 1 inch half moons), 2 russet potatoes (peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks)
2 tomatoes (roma or on the vine), grated
salt & pepper
6 cups (or so) of water or chicken broth

Combine the ground meat, egg, and rice in a bowl, then season with salt and pepper. Roll the mixture into smallish balls; I make mine about the size of a ping pong ball. Set aside.

In a large pre-heated pot, warm the grated tomato mixture. Add the water and chicken bouillon to taste (how much you need will depend on what liquid you used). As the water starts to simmer, add the potatoes and carrots and let cook for about 10 minutes, then drop the meatballs in carefully so as not to splash. Cook for about 20 more minutes, adding in the zucchini when there are about 10 minutes left.

For all my Instant Pot people, I do all the same steps except I use. the sautéed function at the beginning and throw all the veggies in at the same time before dropping in the meatballs. Once everything is in, seal the lid and cook on high pressure for 4 minutes. Release immediately when done.

Choose Your Own Engagement

I constantly ask myself what the right balance is between acknowledging the state of the world and providing escapism. I very solidly believe that reading is an inherently political act, and I try to reflect that belief by encouraging an activist approach to reading. I also want this space to be one of escapism, but to be clear: we’re not plugging our ears and screaming “lalala!” at the world’s injustices, but just taking a break to practice a little self care and recharge.

That being said, each of you lovely humans will find yourselves in a different head space this week. Some of you may want to engage with the realities of this political moment head on, others may want to yeet themselves into another galaxy to get a break from it all. So I have four book club options for you below that hopefully cover a few of those bases.

Straight, No Chaser

For the book club that’s ready to unpack some ugly truths and get uncomfortable right here and now, I suggest:

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

Look, I told you this would make you uncomfortable. Ijeoma Oluo’s latest asks: “What happens to a country that tells generation after generation of white men that they deserve power? What happens when success is defined by status over women and people of color, instead of by actual accomplishments?”

Book Club Bonus: Apply what you learn here to what the US is going through right now, and really sit with the fact that it was a long time coming.

Oh Snap, There’s Spinach in This Smoothie?!

For the book club that wants the lesson snuck into some levity: you want to stay engaged, but are craving a lighter read. Try:

You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar

Amber Ruffin is such a talented and hilarious human. She’s written for Late Night with Seth Meyers since 2014 (a role that made her the first Black woman to write for a late-night network talk show in the US). Amber lives in New York, but her sister Lacey still lives back in Nebraska where they both grew up. This book is a downright horrifying collection of stories of the kinds of the racist BS that Lacey deals with on a daily basis in Omaha (some examples: strangers touching her hair, being mistaken for Harriet Tubman(!?), Oh, and getting hit on by a dude with the confederate flag in his online dating profile). But!! It’s also so, so funny. The sisters’ banter and delivery injects such comedy into some truly cringey stories. You’ll learn something, but you’ll stay laughing too.

Book Club Bonus: Have you been a Lacey, or have you been the person with your paws all up in Lacey’s hair? Share your experience with the group, both on the giving and receiving ends.

Calgon, Take Me Away!

For the book club that appreciates 90’s TV commercial references, or that’s in the mood for a love story with some characters to dissect, I recently loved:

Beach Read by Emily Henry

January is a successful romance novelist who always believed in love and happy endings. That was until her dad died and she learned that he was unfaithful to her mother for years. Broke, grief-stricken, and on a deadline, she goes to stay at her dad’s Lake Michigan beach house for the summer to clear the house out and hopefully bang out an overdue book. She’s less than pleased to learn that Gus, a Very Serious literary fiction author and her college rival, lives in the house next door. Their reunion is… less than pleasant, but they also can’t seem to stay away from each other. When they both reveal that they have writer’s block, January and Gus come up with a plan: they’ll swap genres for the summer (and try not to fall in love).

Book Club Bonus: Both January and Gus are bringing some baggage to the table and are processing some grief, grief that colors their interaction and more than once leads to miscommunication. Discuss examples of similar patterns in your own lives if it feels right in the moment, orrrrrr you can talk about how romance has helped you heal in your life like it did for January. Embrace the feels! Share the feels! Get all up in those feels.

Where is My Spaceship? I’m Out.

For the book club that wants just a few hours of solid, fantastical escapism and maybe likes snarky animal companions, I absolutely love:

Sabriel by Garth Nix

Sabriel has spent most of her life at a boarding school outside the walls of the Old Kingdom, where the line between the living and the dead is blurred. During her final semester at the school, her father, the Abhorsen—the guardian of the border between life and death—goes missing. Though most presume him dead, Sabriel is convinced he’s still alive, so she journeys into the Old Kingdom to find him. Along for the ride are two companions: Touchstone, a young Charter Mage long imprisoned by magic, and Mogget, a talking cat who’s forever mood is “grumpy AF.” As the trio travels deep into the Old Kingdom, they encounter threats of all sorts (most of them dead); every step brings them closer to a battle between the forces of life and death, one that brings Sabriel face-to-face with her own hidden destiny.

Book Club Bonus: I love books where a well-meaning person or group tries to protect a “chosen one” type by keeping information from them (or removing them from a situation entirely) in the name of protecting that person, only to sort of have it all blow up in their face. Discuss the Abhorsen’s decision to send Sabriel to Ancelstierre. Did he do the right thing?

Suggestion Section

Duchess Camilla is kicking off her new book club with Where the Crawdads Sing. That book, I tell ya. It will outlast the cockroaches.

Tor.com’s discussion of Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters continues.

Padmasree Warrior, the former CTO of Motorola and Cisco, recently unveiled her new startup called Fable, a social media app for book lovers.

Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with your burning book club questions or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the Audiobooks newsletter and catch me once a month on the All the Books podcast.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.

Vanessa