The Bookspan’s Book of the Month Club is a monthly book subscription box. Each month, their panel of Judges selects 5 books, which they announce on the first of the month, and members have six days to decide which book (or books) they would like to receive. All books are shipped at the same time, so members can read and participate in their discussion forums as a group. One book per month is included in the membership fee, and members can purchase up to two additional books each month for $9.99 per title. The monthly price is $16.99 per month, $11.99 per month on a year-long subscription.
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Here are the five selections for the December Book of the Month. I find reading is a wonderful way to relax during the holiday season.
Swimming Lessons By Claire Fuller
Ingrid Coleman writes letters to her husband, Gil, about the truth of their marriage, but instead of giving them to him, she hides them in the thousands of books he has collected over the years. When Ingrid has written her final letter she disappears from a Dorset beach, leaving behind her beautiful but dilapidated house by the sea, her husband, and her two daughters, Flora and Nan.
Twelve years later, Gil thinks he sees Ingrid from a bookshop window, but he’s getting older and this unlikely sighting is chalked up to senility. Flora, who has never believed her mother drowned, returns home to care for her father and to try to finally discover what happened to Ingrid. But what Flora doesn’t realize is that the answers to her questions are hidden in the books that surround her. Scandalous and whip-smart, Swimming Lessons holds the Coleman family up to the light, exposing the mysterious truths of a passionate and troubled marriage.
Amazing! This book comes out in February 2017, yet it is a December choice. I found Swimming Lessons By Claire Fuller to be haunting. The reader is taken into the past through letters that show a wife’s pain and a past that the younger daughter was too young to understand. The present shows how the past affected each daughter’s view of their father and the family bond. It’s a sad story about a passionate and painful marriage with a tragic ending.
Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.
Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.
The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?
Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? By Kathleen Collins – Guest Judge Abbi Jacobson
Humorous, poignant, perceptive, and full of grace, Kathleen Collins’s stories masterfully blend the quotidian and the profound in a personal, intimate way, exploring deep, far-reaching issues—race, gender, family, and sexuality—that shape the ordinary moments in our lives.
In “The Uncle,” a young girl who idolizes her handsome uncle and his beautiful wife makes a haunting discovery about their lives. In “Only Once,” a woman reminisces about her charming daredevil of a lover and his ultimate—and final—act of foolishness. Collins’s work seamlessly integrates the African-American experience in her characters’ lives, creating rich, devastatingly familiar, full-bodied men, women, and children who transcend the symbolic, penetrating both the reader’s head and heart.
Both contemporary and timeless, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? is a major addition to the literary canon, and is sure to earn Kathleen Collins the widespread recognition she is long overdue.
The Estate of Kathleen Collins published Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? By Kathleen Collins this month. The Foreword gave a great background that leads to a better understanding of the stories that were written decades ago. I found the stories to be insightful, humorous, sad and beautifully written.
Chizuru Akitani is the twelve-year-old daughter of the famous violinist and Japanese “Living National Treasure” Hiro Akitani. Overweight and hafu (her mother is white), she is tormented by her classmates and targeted by the most relentless bully of them all, Tomoya Yu. When Chizuru’s mother dies suddenly her father offers her no comfort and she is left feeling alone and unmoored. At school, her bully’s cruelty intensifies, and in a moment of blind rage, Chizuru grabs a Morimoto letter opener from her teacher’s desk and fatally stabs Tomoya Yu in the neck.
For the next seven years, Chizuru is institutionalized. Her father visits her just twice before ultimately disowning her. Upon release, Chizuru flees Japan for a new identity and life in the United States. Determined to outrun her murderous past, she renames herself Rio, graduates from nursing school, marries a loving man, and soon has a daughter. But when a mysterious package arrives on her doorstep in Boulder, Colorado, announcing the death of her father, Rio feels compelled to return to Japan for the first time in twenty years, leaving her husband and her daughter confused and bereft. Going back to her homeland, and to the scene of her complicated past, feels like stepping into a strange and familiar dream. When she unexpectedly reconnects with Miss Danny, who had been her beloved teacher at the time of the stabbing, long-kept secrets are unearthed, forcing Rio to confront her past in ways she never imagined, and to decide if she will reveal to her family who she once was.
Full of atmospheric and illuminating descriptions of Japan and its culture, Pull Me Under is an affecting exploration of home, identity, and the limits of forgiveness. Kelly Luce has written a bold and psychologically complex first novel that grips and dazzles from start to finish.
Don’t let the cover, an accurate representation of the book, weird you out. All I can say is Pull Me Under By Kelly Luce is an impressive first novel. I learned a lot about Japanese culture while reading Rio’s journey to discover her true self. Rio experienced a few bumps along the way that had me wondering if her anger was only controlled by being in a carefully crafted environment of her creation which she lost when traveling back to Japan and reconnecting with Miss Danny. I was unhappy with the ending because I felt she was trying to avoid her future instead of facing it.
The subscriber’s box had snowflakes on it this month. Loved it!
Book of the Month is holding a contest in December. Did anyone submit a holiday photo using the BOTM ribbon and box?
Nobody writes about teenagers better than Megan Abbott. Also few authors write moody, twisty thrillers as well as her either. You Will Know Me is Abbot in top form!
-Kevin
You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott
How far will you go to achieve a dream? That’s the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete. For the Knoxes there are no limits–until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community and everything they have worked so hard for is suddenly at risk.
As rumors swirl among the other parents, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself irresistibly drawn to the crime itself. What she uncovers–about her daughter’s fears, her own marriage, and herself–forces Katie to consider whether there’s any price she isn’t willing to pay to achieve Devon’s dream.
I had mixed feelings about You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott which is a mystery combined with the demands of a high-pressure competitive sport. I had a hard time enjoying the story because it seemed to me that the dream was destroying the family. It’s the hidden truths that come out that kept me engaged in the book.
Book of the Month kindly sent me five selections which thrilled me because it would have been hard to select one book this month. My favorite book is Push Me Under because of the glimpses into Japanese culture along with the psychological complexities. A close second is Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?
Book of the Month is an easy-going subscription. The introductory price of $5.00 can’t be beaten. You can skip a month. You can add up to two extra books at $9.99 a book. Can’t wait to start reading? Hit the ship it early button in your account by 8pm ET on the second of the month. Then join the discussion group and share your opinion. Select a book by December 21!
What book did you pick this month? Share below and let us know!
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