Author: The Bookly Club

Bookly’s Hiatus

Published by

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: The Bookly Club is going on hiatus, this video explains it all… View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Bookly Club (@thebooklyclub) It’s been a wonderful run. And who knows? Maybe we’ll be back someday. But thank you so much for being a part of this community, and thank you for the 60 wonderful books it’s brought us. Keeping up with it all may have gotten a little away from me (fitting photo, haha) but I wouldn’t change this experience for the world. And if you’d like to keep in touch you can find me at @shecoversbooks

A Fitting End

Published by

I sat down Tuesday morning to read Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How it Ends, the final book in our 2020 line up, and I finished by early afternoon. I sat for a few hours taking in Luiselli’s words and questions one at a time. As she addresses America’s current child refugee crisis rooted at the Mexico border, Luiselli asks herself and the reader many questions … Why? How? For how long? Where does it begin? Where does it end? She highlights a cruel cycle that our country and our neighbors hold blame for, proving that it’s not until they (we) take responsibility that we can rectify and steer away from this crisis. “It would surely be a step forward for our governments to officially acknowledge the hemispheric dimensions of the problem, acknowledge the connection between such phenomena as the drug wars, gangs in Central America and the United States, the consumption of drugs, and the massive migration of children from the Northern Triangle to the United States through Mexico. No one, or almost no one, from …

Dec & Jan Book

Published by

How did we get here?? This year (disaster? reformation? apocalypse?) 2020 is finally coming to its end. And let’s hope whatever cloud has been hanging over us these last several months (4 years? 300 years?) starts to dissipate. That being said, 2020 has taught us a lot. Many of us learned what we’re capable of, who we can lean on, what family means, who we are in this world and our roles as allies and citizens. It’s been a journey. Lots of conversations, revelations, and reading. And I like to think there are a lot of us out there better off, more aware, than when we started this year. But let’s not stop there… We’re seasonal readers at The Bookly Club. And this time of year we like to learn something new by looking outside our own world views to hear new voices. And this year we’ve chosen Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions. Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City and spent her childhood in different countries around …

November Book

Published by

More than most books we’ve read at The Bookly Club, fellow book-lovers can’t seem to say enough good things about this year’s November book. And rightfully so! This bestseller is an all-time favorite for a lot of readers and has won countless accolades. Selected in 2016 for the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35” award, the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for best first book, one of Oprah’s Best Books of the Year longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2017, recipient of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for 2017, an American Book Award, and the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature The historical fiction debut novel Homegoing begins in eighteenth century Ghana, and follows the parallel lives of two half sisters and their descendants. One sister, Effia, marries an Englishman and lives a life of comfort. The other, Esi, is captured, imprisoned, and sold into slavery. This multigenerational family saga travels from Southern plantations and the Civil War, to the Great Migration, the jazz age, dope houses in twentieth-century Harlem, right up …

October Book

Published by

At The Bookly Club we read according to the season (more on that here). And what does fall put you in the mood for? For us it’s the perfect time to read something good and scary. We know, we know this year’s been scary enough! We’re definitely not in the mood for anything apocalyptic right now. BUT this October we’ve picked a book that’s a play on the classic haunted house story. And we think it’s just right time for curling up with a good book as the leaves change and the temperatures fall. The Invited by Jennifer McMahon is a story about Nate and Helen; a young couple who decide to leave suburban life for a more rural setting on forty acres of land in the country. They plan to build their dream home together. As Helen finds inspiration through found objects in the local area—a beam from an old schoolroom, bricks from a mill, a mantel from a farmhouse—she becomes infatuated with the area’s dark history. The stories of Hattie Breckenridge, a local …

September Book

Published by

Pictured above: Puffin in Bloom edition of Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery Here at The Bookly Club September is the season when we visit (or revisit) a scholastic classic. Normally this is when we’re heading back to school and dreaming of school supplies. But again, this school year will be looking very different. However, we still have the books we love! So for September we’ve picked a beloved classic. And what is there really to say about our September book? First published on June 13th, 1908, this book and its characters have taken on a life of their own. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery has been translated into 36 languages, sold over 50 million copies, and is one of the best-selling books of all time. And yet, I’ve never read it! I’ve watched the 1980’s series, and the latest adaptation Anne with an E on Netflix, but I’ve never read the book. So for many of us this will be a re-read, but for some of us this will be a long overdue …

August Book

Published by

At The Bookly Club we pick a book for August that fits in your beach bag. Not literally (although if a book doesn’t fit in your beach bag you’re doing it wrong), but it should be a book you’d want with you on a day at the beach. Granted, this year’s a little bit different. A lot-a-bit different actually. Beach-going and summer vacations aren’t the care-free relaxing endeavors they once were. In fact, if you’re like us, they aren’t happening at all. Or if we do, our beach bags are over-stuffed with PPE and hand sanitizers, and maybe a book. But no matter where we’re reading from this summer, we’re still in the mood for a “beach read.” Something that moves fast, isn’t too long, with maybe a touch of romance, likeable characters, and light on the gravitas. And Diane Chamberlain’s The Stolen Marriage fits that bill for us! A lifelong book lover, and author since the late 1980’s, Chamberlain has authored dozens of novels. And The Stolen Marriage is one of her more recent books; …

July Book

Published by

This July at The Bookly Club we’ll be reading Zora Neale Hurston‘s profound work, Barracoon. And we hope you’ll read with us as we all further our education on American history. How do you join? Check HERE. And now more about our selection… Although Hurston wrote Barracoon nearly 100 years ago in 1927, it was only just published in 2018. It’s tells the story of Cudjo Lewis, originally known as Oluale Kossola, who at the time was the only living survivor of the Clotilda; the last slaver known to have made the transatlantic journey (unearthed just last year in 2019). Hurston was, and is, one of America’s most notable authors and anthropologists. She’s the author of dozens of award-winning poems, essays, plays, novels, short stories, books, and a filmmaker. As a Black woman in America at the turn of the century, she focused her work on the issues of the Black community and was an integral part of the Harlem Renaissance movement. She told stories of the African American experience, and Barracoon was in fact …

Scary Stories from Wayside School

Published by

I’m so excited to be sharing my first-ever review in PODCAST format! We’ve partnered with Alli from the SSR Podcast for our May & June read of Sideways Stories from Wayside School, and it was so much fun! SSR has been one of our favorite bookish podcasts for awhile now, breaking down an old school read from our tween and teen days every week. And I had the pleasure of chatting with Alli all about this odd, silly, creepy childhood classic. We had a lot to say; good, bad and ugly. So thank you so much to Alli and the SSR Podcast for hosting Bookly this month, and please CLICK HERE to check out all our thoughts and feelings in Episode 97 of the SSR Podcast . . .   And make sure to visit the SSR Podcast for plenty more literary throwback chats!  

May & June Book

Published by

We’re so excited to announce our selection for May & June! It’s been a crazy time lately, so revisiting a childhood classic sounds just right. But even better, this month we’ve organized our first-ever collaboration with one of our favorite podcasts; SSR Podcast! Host Alli Kosik chats weekly with readers all about different literary throwbacks. And for the Bookly Club we reserve May & June for a YA read or childhood throwback to celebrate school letting out. So, it seemed like the perfect time to join forces with Alli and the SSR Podcast for our selection this month(s). Without further ado, this May & June the Bookly Club and Alli of the SSR Podcast will be reading Louis Sachar’s classic Sideways Stories from Wayside School. Published in 1978, this book is the first in a series of Wayside books. Sachar began writing Sideways Stories shortly after his college graduation. He eventually grew enough of a following to write full-time and quit his law career. And he’s been writing ever since. If fact, the latest book …