Selection Day

One of the hardest things I have ever had to do is get rid of all my books.

When we moved a while back, I decided that I would focus on digitizing my library and focus on saving space. Justin was still a baby and 4 of the 5 kids still lived with us. Our new house was roomy enough, but space was at a premium. So I gave away almost all of them. When we moved I only had a handful of irreplaceable volumes.

And it SUCKED. Reading on the Kindle was not the same for me. Being apart from my books had an effect on my mental health. Books have always been my refuge, and I feel better when I am physically surrounded by them.

Books matter to me. SO much.

And I want to be able to share that with you. So I started this book club.

Here’s how it works. Every month (or so), I will choose a new book. Some will be fiction, some nonfiction. Some will be more challenging than others. I will suggest weekly chunks for you to read. My goal is for each chunk to be 100-150 pages - enough to read in a few hours for most people. Each Wednesday I will share my thoughts on a chunk and ask questions for you to consider.

You can read along and participate in the discussion as much or as little as you desire. If you want to comment, great. If you want to just read, great. And if you want to just read about reading, you can do that too. There is no wrong way to do this.

All I ask is that you read something. Anything. It matters.

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That brings us to the first selection. I wanted something fun and full of action. I hope I will not choose boring books.

Our first book is…

I will let the author Grady Hendrix describe the novel… (from the author’s note):

When I was a kid I didn’t take my mom seriously. She was a housewife who was in a book club, and she and her friends were always running errands, and driving carpool, and forcing us to follow rules that didn’t make sense. They just seemed like a bunch of lightweights. Today I realize how many things that they were dealing with that I was totally unaware of…

Because vampires are the original serial killers, stripped of everything that makes us human - they have no friends, no family, no roots, no children. All they have is hunger. They eat and eat but they’re never full. With this book, I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom. (emphasis mine)

I honestly can’t imagine a more wonderful premise for our first book.

This book is about a suburban Charleston mom named Patricia, who belongs to a book club and struggling to manage all that life entails when a bizarre incident with a neighbor introduces her to James Harris. And the rest? Well, let’s read about it.

The sections will shake out as follows:

Next week (January 18) will cover from the beginning of the book to the end of Chapter 11.

January 25 - through Chapter 23

February 1 - through Chapter 33

February 8 - through end of book, final thoughts, announcement of next book

Welcome to the Combat Snuggles Book Club, y’all.

PS. If you have any suggestions for future books, let me know. I am willing to consider almost any genre (it would have to be one HELL of a cookbook). I won’t promise it will make the list, but I will promise to be grateful.