While she does not want to join one, my sister likes to know what her friends are reading in their book clubs. So, when I received a reminder that the Merriam Park Book Club would be discussing This Is Happiness by Niall Williams, it gave me an idea. I thought it might be fun to occasionally assemble a list of books based on the titles that come up in conversations.

From my neighborhood, Susan writes:

“I am currently reading a novel called Stacken (The Colony) by Swedish writer/songwriter-singer Annika Norlin. I am reading it in Swedish for an American Swedish Institute literature class. The online class is very similar to a book club only our discussions are in Swedish. (The reading isn’t too hard for me, but talking about the book in Swedish is a struggle.) The book was a bestseller in Sweden. It is about a burned out go-getter who flees to the northern forest where she encounters a group of people who, for various reasons, have dropped out of mainstream society. The book is weird but very engrossing. It was only recently translated into English.”

Meanwhile, Ann’s book club recently read The BeeKeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri. “It is about a family fleeing Syria during the civil war and trying to get to England as immigrant refugees. Very timely in general.”

Also timely, at the open coffee hour that we host most Saturday mornings, we learned that the young Jacob across the street just purchased George Orwell’s 1984. Apparently, he needed something to cleanse murder from his pallet as he also picked up Crime and Punishment. Upon hearing this, Ralph blurted “Dostoevsky!” The kid’s mother told him that reading it would “make him feel as though he had actually committed the crime and was now suffering through the punishment.” Not to be outdone by the 14-year-old, Ralph recommended Winston Churchill’s The Gathering Storm. It is part of a WWII series and pairs well with the headlines of the day.

At a recent political salon that we hosted, Joel mentioned Arlie Russell Hochschild’s works Stolen Pride and Strangers in their Own Land. Later he wrote: “The librarian in me needs to share these recommendations for understanding the current, angry electorate.” He suggested starting with Strangers in their Own Land.

Joel also shared news that Minnesota Senator John Marty’s father passed away at the age of 97. While I knew of Sen. Marty’s progressive politics, I did not realize that his father, Martin E. Marty, was a prominent religious scholar and, according the New York Times, a “staunch champion of pluralism.” Marty wrote such books as: The One and the Many – America’s Struggle for the Common Good and Modern American Religion, Volume 2, The Noise of Conflict, 1919-1941.

Brian says that More Than Words – How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI by John Warner was a highly energizing book. He liked how Warner “continuously puts human needs first without whining so much about how AI is an affront to this approach…” Knowing my hatred for “content,” he interrupted a YouTube video about toggle bolts to quote from the book:

“The biggest shift over the course of my life as a writer has been the transformation of writing into something known as ‘content’.  Content is anything that can be consumed by an audience via a platform. Content is stuff where the primary purpose is to draw an audience to feed them advertising. Lots of content on the internet is writing, but there is also content made of words that does not qualify as writing. The meaning, purpose, and quality of the content is immaterial, provided it can be monetized through clicks. There is no genuine communicative intent behind content… One of the most immediate and potentially damaging consequences of generative AI is its potential to drown us in content whose only purpose is to capture clicks to generate revenue through online advertising.”

In an age of market-worship, it can be easy for a humanitarian to feel like a dinosaur. So, it’s refreshing to stumble upon anything that affirms a sensibility that says that we’re more than what we can produce and that some of the best things in life are inefficient, and that our humanity is worth preserving.

As for the Williams book that sparked the idea for a post like this, Cheryl writes that This is Happiness is a gorgeous Irish novel with a strong recommendation by all in her book club. “It is lovely and dense and yummy and peaceful.” Next the group will be reading Girl Woman Other by Bernadine Evaristo. “God only knows how we come to our choices,” Cheryl writes. “But it’s always a lively conversation and we have stumbled on some beautiful books.”

Cheryl is herself a debut author. Her book Poised is a story set in 1990s Kentucky where “a naïve but spirited doctor, Shelly Riley, slogs through a two-year fellowship. Continually hampered by chauvinist mentors and exhausting training, she battles for the lives of her cancer patients… Cancer care isn’t funny, but people are…”

Tooting my own horn, Big Talk is a book of 42 Questions in which your friend circles can write in their answers. It tracks with my podcast, QuOTeD – The Question of the Day, in which I ask people one question and then assemble audio montages using their answers. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the answers that my neighbors have supplied in my copy of the book. I self-published it as a way to learn about that process.