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Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. This week I’m awash in the warm light of happy optimism. It’s warm and sunny in San Diego, I got my first dose of the vaccine, I’ve been subsisting on a diet of tacos and avocado everything, and my beautiful baby niece was born on Sunday. I got to babysit her big brother all weekend and can confirm that toddlers are the shadiest age group. I’d be all, “Hey, I love you!” and he’d respond by my picking up a piece of my hair, shaking his head, and saying, “Ay ay ay, Nana.” Well damn.
But let’s talk about books. To the club!!
Nibbles and Sips
Either a few weeks or a few months ago (because what is time?), I talked about this awesome roundup of Black mixologists by Food & Wine. This gorgeous weather has me in the mood to whip up some tasty cocktails, so I’m making this beautiful Rosemary Paloma by featured mixologist Camille Wilson, creator of The Cocktail Snob. Not only do I get to push my Herbal Simple Syrup agenda, but I also found a beautiful soul who understands that the paloma, not the margarita, is Mexico’s most popular tequila-based drink. Salud!
Pero that’s not all. Warm weather pairs so well with one of my absolutely favorite cocktails: the Caipirinha! Here’s a super easy recipe for this Brazilian classic from Lucas Assis, a creator I recently discovered on el Tiki Toki.
So Misunderstood
I absolutely love this Miss Havisham character analysis written by D.R. Baker for Book Riot. I don’t know about you, but I am 100% guilty of picturing a dusty old crone knock-knock-knocking on heaven’s door whenever I think of Miss Havisham, not a woman in her 40s! This got me thinking that it might be fun to do a book club theme on misunderstood women. Let’s dive in, shall we?
Circe
Circe by Madeline Miller
How any of you read that theme and immediately thought, “Here goes Vanessa pushing that Circe stuff again!” Congrats, friend, you know my heart. I will never stop singing the praises of this absolute gem of a book wherein the sea witch you probably first came across in The Odyssey tells us her story from her perspective. There’s nothing I don’t love about this lyrical, powerful reclaiming of Circe’s narrative.
Book Club Bonus: Discuss the ways in which women have been vilified in lit (and movies, tv, etc) since the dawn of time. I know I talked about this book earlier this month, but Jess Zimmerman’s Women and Other Monsters would be an amazing companion read for an exploration of this trend in mythology.
Bertha Rochester
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Ooooookay bro: so you marry me when I’m just a rich hottie to you, but then your ass locks me in an upstairs closet for the rest of my life when you realize I’m battling addiction and mental illness? Then you have the nerve to be all, “I’m so sorry, she’s just so crazy” to the woman you now want to replace me with and wonder why I had the audacity to tear up her veil? Kick rocks, Rochester!
Book Club Bonus: I’d like to point out that I absolutely love Jane Eyre but the older I get, the more I realize that Bertha kinda got a raw deal. Was Eddie Rotch really acting in her best interest, or was his solution really more about his own convenience? Or is it both? How we do still push aside people dealing with mental illness today for the sake of not having to inconvenience ourselves? Discuss!
Iranian Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran
Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi
Writer and cartoonist Marjane Satrapi is more widely known for her bestselling graphic memoir Persepolis. Embroideries is often slept on though and I’m here to tell you it’s both poignant and absolutely hilarious. This honest, intimate, and revelatory peek into the lives of six Iranian women is a blend of graphic memoir and graphic novel. In 1990s Tehran, Satrapi’s mother, grandmother, aunts, and their friends are all gathered for their regular afternoon tradition of sipping—and spilling—tea. Their chat includes talk of love, sex, and each of the women’s various dealings with men. It’s like if the Golden Girls were Iranian and swapped cheesecake for piping hot tea.
Book Club Bonus: This book should inspire some good chat on the social and cultural stereotypes that are shattered in these women’s candid conversations on sexual politics. This should also lead to an examination of women’s sexual agency and related stereotypes in modern society here in the U.S. of A.
Suggestion Section
at The Washington Post: How women invented book clubs, revolutionizing reading and their own lives
GMA announces it’s April book club pick
Barnes & Noble Selects Kirstin Valdez Quade’s The Five Wounds as April 2021 National Book Club Selection
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