"The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry" Gabrielle Zevin

      Have you always been in love with interesting bookstores? Your whole life? Do you look for independent bookstores wherever you go? I would say that all of our book group on Tuesday would answer "yes, yes, yes"!  Joan, Zanna, Annie, Mary, Paige, Marylib, and Libby all confessed that they have a life long love of these special independent interesting bookstores, or really any bookstore.  And they all agreed that the book "The Storied Life of AJ Fikry" was fun because it was about connection through books, love of books, sharing books, discovering books, and learning about life through books. The main character AJ is having a hard time in life, losing his wife, lonesome, angry and a bit of a picky snob. His motto is "No man is an island; Every book is a world."
      The story is fast paced and interesting, with plot twists and quirky characters. Marylib pointed out that lots of time and happenings were left out or left to the imagination, but that was OK. It didn't harm the enjoyment of the book. In the end loose ends are tied up, there is a consistent animated feeling, a light tone, and some good old fashioned love and joy, especially because AJ acquires a baby and a wife, and in the end, the ol bookstore carries on even after AJ's death, even though it is on an island. It was definitely optimistic about the continuation of love of books and bookstores.
     From this simple story about an island bookstore, our conversation wandered all over many subjects, about communication and books, the ways we can love books, be inspired by them, and share them. As Annie says "I love how discussion just sort of flows in all kinds of interesting ways. That is the beauty of books, isn't it." Well said.  We talked about libraries; certain bookstores that give us a feeling of reverance and new ideas; other bookstores that don't. We talked about different ways to communicate; texts, emails, the almost lost art of letter writing. Maybe texts in the future will become like precious haiku poems. Joan talked about her brother who doesn't read but can see things in three dimension. Annie talked about finding a precious old letter from her mother, choking all of us up, and we wondered if in modern ways of communication, things will be lost in the wind, so to speak (and not to mice). We wondered if we process things differently listening to a book vs reading one. We all agreed that books have taught us a whole lot of wonderful things about life!

"H is for Hawk" Helen Macdonald

So, "H is for Hawk" was a book I did not love, but was glad I read . Well written, even poetic. The author has a deep love of nature, and I enjoyed her vivid descriptions of the country she explored with her hawk, Mabel. Her 'relationship' with Mabel was fascinating, and she trained her well and humanely. I do have some difficulty with the 'humaneness' of holding such a wild thing captive. I think the author would have been a real candidate for suicide had she not embarked on this challenging journey of training a goshawk, one of the most difficult raptors to train. I did get a little weary of her endless angst, as well as her frequent departures to talk about the life of TH White, who she revered as a child. He wrote, The Man Who Would Be King, and raised a goshawk as well.
The book stimulated a great discussion at book group. It was just different enough.

Annie