2021 Life Logs, Day 348: Computer Tutoring Session and Book Club
Date: Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 52, Low Temp 30 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was a beautiful and a busy day. I started with an hour-long computer tutoring session. A Newcomers member, Art Gilbert, offers free one-on-one tutoring sessions at the Falmouth Senior Center. He is so popular that it takes a month or more to get an appointment, but it is worth the wait. From the computer session, I ran a couple of errands and then headed to meet with my book club. It was our first inside meeting since the beginning of Covid, but all of us have been fully vaccinated and boosted and we wore masks today ‘just in case’.
The literary interests of the members of this group are diverse and that was evident in our recommendations for books to read in 2022. Each of us brought a list of three books to present as possibilities. After each member’s presentation, we discussed the merits of the three books and chose one and paired it with a month. The one member that could not come sent her three suggestions in writing. Honestly, every book sounded fascinating, but we forced ourselves to come up with our favorites. Each choice seemed like a special gift. Since there are only eight of us, we will need to choose three more books at some point. We don’t meet in July, so we only need eleven books each year. We are set through September and at some point, we will go back over the list of recommendations and come up with choices for the last three months of the year.
Since so many people I know are always looking for book suggestions, I am going to list our recommended books here. The ones with three asterisks were the ones we chose. Happy reading in the New Year!
• ***The Immortal Irishman by Timothy Egan (2017) 384 pages
• Maid, Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive by
Stephanie Land (2019) 270 pages
• Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (2021) 626 pages
• Additional Choice—Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (2021) 250 pages
• ***This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger (2019) 424 pages
• Love and My Husband’s Daughter by Emma Robinson (2020 ) 268
pages
• Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
(2008) 425 pages
• ***The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria
Christopher Murray (2021) 352 pages
• Summer on the Bluffs by Sunny Hostin (2021) 400 pages
• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, (2021) 600 pages
• ***Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (2017)
383 pages
• The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas (2017) 240 pages
• The Vanishing Half by Gail Honeyman (2017), 383 pages–Already
Read
• ***Miss Bensen’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce (2020) 368 pages
• State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton (2021) 512
pages
• Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (also recommended by another
member)
• Additional Choice–Ordinary Grace by William Kent Kruger (2014)
336 pages
• ***A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allegne (2020) 336 pages
• An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff (2012) 272 pages
• Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020) 304 pages
• ***The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley (2021) 480
pages
• Beloved by Tony Morrison (1987) 324 pages
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813) 380 pages
• Non-fiction Recommendation for Personal Reading—This Land is
Their Land by Bob Silverman
• ***Circe by Madeline Miller (2018, Reprint 2020), 416 pages
• Still Life by Sarah Winman (2021) 464 page
• Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell ( 2021) 320 pages
• Recommended for Historical Fiction Readers–Beatriz Williams
books
