Thank you to everyone who proposed books for our 2021 reading list - and then faithfully voted! We had over 50 titles submitted, reflecting the remarkable range of interests among our members. As we do each year, all submissions were compiled and the titles with the most votes were assigned to a month, with the "runners-up" becoming alternate readings. (Alternate readings are available in case a given book is not to your taste. Alternates also allow us to include those intriguing titles that just missed winning the popular vote.) As always, you can choose to read one or both titles each month - as long as you come to each meeting with an opinion, ready to talk! So - without any further ado, -- here is our freshly compiled First Friday Book Club's 2021 Reading list! MAIN SELECTION ============= MONTH TITLE Jan 2021 Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch Feb 2021 Ponzi’s Scheme by Mitchel Zuckoff Mar 2021 Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford Apr 2021 Eighty Days: Nellie Bly’s Race by Matthew Goodman May 2021 Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens Jun 2021 Bad Blood: Secrets in Silicon Valley by John Carreyrou July 2021 Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly Aug 2021 The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey Sep 2021 Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick Oct 2021 The GoldFinch by Donna Tartt Nov 2021 A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell Dec 2021 The Little Old Lady Who Broke the Rules by C.Sundberg =============
ALTERNATE SELECTIONS
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MONTH TITLE
Jan 2021 A Beautiful Poison by Lydia Kang
Feb 2021 Conversations with RBG by Jeffrey Rosen
Mar 2021 The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate
Apr 2021 The Boy Between Worlds by A. van der Zijl
May 2021 Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
Jun 2021 Killing Lincoln by Bill O’Reilly
Jul 2021 The Baker’s Secret by Stephen P Kiernan
Aug 2021 My Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni
Sep 2021 Syria’s Secret Library by Mike Thompson
Oct 2021 5 People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Nov 2021 You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe
Dec 2021 Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee
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The full list is attached to this email and can be found on our web page here: http://www.tamisutcliffe.com/First_Friday_Book_Club/2021.pdf
Thank you again for keeping the Book Club alive and thriving!
2021 will be a spectacular year!
“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”― Voltaire
NOW WHAT?
As of May 17, our Recreation Center remains closed.
The official resource for re-opening remains the City of McKinney site here: https://www.mckinneytexas.org/2268/Online-City-Services-Closures-and-Change
So - our best-laid plans for the June 5 meeting are still on hold.
I will be in touch with the Center staff next week to see if they would be able to host a remote video call meeting for us. Are there dates/times you prefer for a video call?
Would we want to talk about the May and June titles (Less and Killers of the Flower Moon) in one meeting or should we re-shuffle our next discussions?
Some book clubs have created temporary virtual meeting spots online while face-to-face meetings are unavailable. Would you be interested in using a secure, free online site, such as a blog, to temporarily "meet" over the summer? This would not be live video, but a secure (password protected) place to post text and images, sharing opinions on our readings, with planned discussions on specific topics. I am collecting resource ideas and will email the findings to the group in the next two weeks. If you know of sites which might fit our needs, please contact me via email.
Our diverse and somewhat unlikely group has coalesced over the last two years into a thriving community of readers.
A few months apart will not change that, and might even give us new tools to discover different ways to share our books.
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” ― Stephen King
I will be in touch soon.
Tami
Book club web page = First Friday Book Club
Book club Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/FirstFridayBookClub