Author: The Bookly Club

Books Heal

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This election, elections of any kind for that matter, should (should have) spark people’s interest in their civic duties and obligations to each other as American citizens and, more importantly, as global citizens. So, no matter your politics, what can we do to work better together, move forward, and improve this country for all its citizens? Well, there are a number of options, but here we’re all about books. Clearly. So read. Read as much as you can, as often as you can. Learn. Learn more and more. Never stop broadening your knowledge of people, history, politics, the world, the universe, our health, our future. So let’s keep striving to be better, and read. Here are some of our suggestions of where to start: Welcome to the Universe by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A Strauss, J Richard Gott III Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari The Fire Next Time by …

November Book

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With November comes the start of the holiday season, which means lots of family time… and that can mean tension, frustration, and sometimes drama. Which brings us to our November pick: Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. The first in the popular Dollanganger series, this disturbing tale tells the story of the Dollanganger kids. Hidden in the attic because of a family fortune, Chris, Cathy, and the twins are prepared to stay in the creepy alcove for a few days. But soon those days turn into years, and they are forced to adapt to this new life, isolated and with very little to survive. Written in 1979, Flowers in the Attic was what launched Andrews’ extraordinary career and creating a loyal fanbase. Now a Lifetime movie, this haunting novel will make you happy for the family you have. From the back cover: “This enduring masterpiece of psychological suspense remains the most famous and provocative novel from V.C. Andrews, one of the most popular storytellers of all time.”

October Book

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Image from Katherine C’s Instagram Fall is here! Welcome changing leaves, cool air, delicious smells, and all things pumpkin (like it or not)! Oh, and welcome scary stories. Now’s the perfect time to curl up with a spooky read fit for fall. So, that brings us to our October book choice, Descent by Tim Johnston. You may or may not have heard of this one, but if you’re looking for a thriller, THIS should be next on your list. Published just last year, this thriller of a novel, put simply, is about a small family who travels to the Rocky Mountain for vacation when tragedy finds them. The son and daughter take and early morning trek through the local trails, but only the son returns. It sounds fairly basic, right? However, having already read a few dozen pages into it, this story has so many layers that it reads like a classic, page-turning, beautifully complicated, mystery favorite. But NPR put is more eloquently: “A good genre writer might have turned this into a conventional suspense …

September Book

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Image from the 1962 film “To Kill a Mockingbird” Um, it’s September. We’re not sure how that happened. But, none-the-less fall is upon us (almost)! Which also means that school is back in session, so we’re in the mood for a classic. We’re sure you’ve all seen the back to school commercials lately. Anyone else craving a shopping spree for school supplies? No? Just us? Okay. Anyway, let’s get to the point. For September we’ll be reading the required-reading staple To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee! Most of you are probably very familiar with this book and/or have already read it, but not all of us are/have. So, bear with us as we go through a little Mockingbird 101. It was published in 1960 and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. This book has become one of the leading American classics, receiving numerous awards and continuous notoriety. The story it tells is based on an event that Lee observed in her hometown, Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936 when she was just 10 years old. Overall it deals with public attitudes toward race …

August Book

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Lettering Image by Katherine C. Hello and happy beach read month! We’re here to announce our book for August: We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride. The author is a community college teacher in Las Vegas, and this book is her first novel. Published in April 2015, We Are Called to Rise tells the story of Avis, Bashkim, Luis, and Roberta. Four very different people living very different lives in Las Vegas. These lives—a young immigrant boy, a middle-aged housewife, a military veteran, and a social worker—all converge into one uplifting story. Or so we’ve heard. It seems to us like it might be kind of like a literary version on the movie Crash. We’ll have to read and see. But the few people we know who’ve read it have loved it! So that bodes well. “This is a story about families—the ones we have and the ones we make. It’s a story about America today, where so many cultures and points of view collide and coexist. We Are Called to Rise challenges us to think about …

July Book

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Images © ted.com Welcome, welcome! We’re glad you’re reading with us, or at least reading this post. Whether you’ve joined us in the past, followed our posts and reviews, browsed Bookly as a good distraction during the work day, or if this is your first time visiting… either way, welcome!   We’re glad you’re here. Especially this month. This July we’ve selected an important non-fiction read. Since in July we celebrate and reflect on our American history, we chose a story to teach us more about who we are as Americans… On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City by Alice Goffman. Goffman is an American sociologist who currently works as an assistant professor at The University of Wisconsin—Madison. Published in 2014, this book is Goffman’s ethnographic account of the six years she spent living in West Philadelphia (sorry, but you know where our head went with that. Just us?) observing the impact of mass incarceration and policing on low-income, urban, African-American communities. She started this research during her sophomore year at Penn and it eventually evolved into her doctoral thesis, and this …

May/June Book

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Images © http://www.collider.com May and June are two of our combo months (along with December and January). We read just one book for May & June. It makes it a good time to catch on some other things. And this month (these months) the theme is: School’s Out! So, drumroll please… dun dah dah dah!!! Ok. That’s enough. For May & June we’ll be reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It’s a modern young-adult classic. Or at least that’s what we’ve heard. It’s one of those books that’s always on our TBR (to be read) lists, but somehow we’ve gone years without picking it up. And, maybe, watching the movie instead. Ahem. Well, enough procrastinating. It’s time to officially give this one a go. You in?? Well, you should be. And if the movie trailer doesn’t grab you (trust us, the story is about a lot more than it seems), here are a few more fun facts… The Perks of Being a Wallflower was written by Stephen Chbosky and first published in 1999. Chbosky is a native of Pittsburg, as is our protagonist Charlie. …

April Book

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Images ©Knopf Doubleday In the mood for a good laugh after last month’s read? Phew! Us too. So, in honor of April (the month of foolish pranks) we’re reading One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak; “the wonderfully cockeyed, consistently hilarious debut.” You probably recognize the name B.J. Novak. He’s a writer and actor widely known for his work on the acclaimed comedy series “The Office” as an actor, writer, and executive producer. Now, Novak is expanding his scope beyond the walls of Dunder Mifflin. In One More Thing he takes on a range of human experience in this quirky new story collection.   “Finding inspiration in questions from the nature of perfection to the icing on carrot cake, One More Thing has at its heart the most human of phenomena: love, fear, hope, ambition, and the inner stirring for the one elusive element just that might make a person complete.”   Published in 2014, Novak’s One More Thing joins a growing list of celebrated books published by comedic actors/writers (Amy Poehler, Mindy Kaling, Tina Fey, etc.). Although unlike others who have written autobiographical …

March Book

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Image © NPR.org Every year Hollywood’s awards season starts in November and doesn’t end until late February. The Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Academy Awards are some of the most well-known (probably because their red carpets get full E! coverage). And if you’re anything like us, you make time to watch all the fashion, speeches, glitz, and glamour of self-congratulatory Hollywood. But there’s one pattern we’ve noticed over the years, and that’s the number of nominated films that are based on books. In fact, of the 87 films awarded the Academy Award for best picture since its inception in 1928, 62 have been based on books. This year alone, seven of the eight films nominated for best picture are based on books: The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, The Martian, Room, The Revenant, and Spotlight. So, as you may already know, March is our Screenplay month when we read a book that’s been made into a movie and ask ourselves the question; is the book really better than the movie? Which brings us to our book choice this …

Our First Year of Bookly!

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Hooray! We’ve officially completed one year of Bookly. If you’ve been following along since the beginning (thank you!) you might remember we read our very first book last March. The book was Still Alice. And we’ve read a lot of other great ones over this past year (the short and smart We Should All be Feminists, a good tug at the heart strings from Tell The Wolves I’m Home, and the bizarre but fascinating The Handmaid’s Tale, to name a few). This year we’ve also shared some great cover redesigns, newsworthy bulletins, and helpful recommendations! And we hope you’ve enjoyed it all, and maybe learned a little something new. We’ve definitely enjoyed sharing these past 12 months (and 9 books) with you all! With February coming to a close, that means we’re starting a whole new year of Bookly picks and posts. And if you’re new here we hope you’ll join the Bookly club! Here’s a little refresher on how our book club works, AND a few hints at what we’ll be reading this year 🙂 The Bookly Club was started as an …