Family | Book Chatter

Sunday Matters

Ahoy! I just finished reading I Cheerfully Refuse and it warrants a sea worth greeting.

Hey, it’s no secret but everyone is jumping ship from X/Twitter and leaving for Blue Sky. I am currently in both places and Threads as TiBookChatter. If you are on Blue Sky, please find me!

Right Now:

Today will be a fun morning. Coffee is being enjoyed and then I am hosting for the online church service and then, in student ministry we are having the Turkey Bowl! Flag football. No tackling. Will I participate? I could, but I am still being careful of my skull after brain surgery. It’s also a hoot to cheer from the sidelines.

This Week:

It’s already here! It’s Thanksgiving week here in the US. My daughter is flying to Seattle to be with my son. They have a friends-giving planned. I will cook a pared down meal of classics. The Hub and I, including the Otter Pup (who is hanging on by a thread) will enjoy it and then take food over for my in-laws. They are not doing well. Not comfortable enough to join us at our home so we will go there, feed them and maybe enjoy a slice of pie with them. That’s it. They can’t socialize for long these days.

Aging sucks. Aging pets and aging parents. My own have been gone for awhile but this is rough.

Reading:

Oh my gosh. I am a reading machine! I probably just jinxed myself by saying that. I have been reading four books at a time and I am loving it.

I just finished and reviewed:

I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger
Orbital by Samantha Harvey

I am in the final pages of Pete and Alice in Maine by Caitlin Shetterly. I love a good novel set in Maine.

I am about 25% in to Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. I am late to the party on this one but it’s so charming. I’ve had a copy for ages but needed to quickly find another book to keep up my pace and there it was.

Watching:

Did you watch the fight? I am glad that Paul didn’t hurt Tyson because he easily could have. In the end, he showed respect. I liked that.

Finished Season 2 of Tulsa King. Highly recommend. I was never a huge Stallone fan but he is just so good in it. Kind of humorous and brutal too.

Cobra Kai is back. I just watched the first episode. Yawn. It’s kind of corny and focused on the romance between two of the characters.

I have all my Hallmark Christmas stuff lined up but haven’t pulled the trigger yet. I am off all this week so hello, Hallmark! I’m coming for ya.

Making:

The only days I cook now are typically Mondays. I work remotely that day and it’s easy to simmer something on the stove while working.

Of course, I will be cooking for Thanksgiving. I like to introduce new things but this year, there is a lot on recall, like carrots! I make this really good brown sugar carrot thing but with the recall, I will sub sweet potatoes.

Grateful for:

Every minute that we have with this pup. She is trying so hard to stick around. My adult kids are coming for three days on 12/23. Hopefully they will see her. My son is bringing his cat Root Beer and she loved Chloe when she came as a kitten. We shall see!

Also, the other night the pup shot up out of bed, hopped off and took off down the hall. Hello!! She is not be able to walk much less hop off a bed. I was so half asleep and worried but she seemed pretty proud. See how she rallies? Fourteen and still a pistol.

To everyone who celebrates, Happy Thanksgiving week! Love you, all.

Happy Thanksgiving. An autumn scene with pumpkins and a candle. Bordered by leaves.

The Great Believers
By Rebecca Makkai
Penguin, 9780735223530, June 2019, 448pp.

The Short of It:

A wide, expansive novel.

The Rest of It:

“A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister.” ~ the publisher

This novel encompasses so much. Yale is on the cusp of acquiring an art collection that would really put his name on the map, but there are complications. The current owner of the pieces, an elderly lady by the name of Nora, has specific desires for each piece, and her family, doesn’t approve of any of it. True, it would leave them without the inheritance but it’s art, beautiful art and meant to be enjoyed in a gallery.

Alternating between moments of beauty, there is the AIDS epidemic of the 80s. We find these characters just at the beginning of the downward spiral. Nico, is the first to be lost. Leaving a behind a handful of loyal friends who don’t really know how to go on without his constant presence.

Chicago’s gay pride scene is just starting to ramp up, along with the number of people stricken with this terrible disease. Medications are not readily available or even invented yet and the ones that do exist are too costly for the average Joe to afford. That part, has not changed has it?

Yale and his friends do their best to support the ones that get hit with the virus, but isn’t it only a matter of time before they are all affected by it in some way, directly or indirectly. They are terrified and often find themselves hopeless so this art collection is really the only thing holding Yale together.

In addition to these very serious issues, Fiona is searching desperately for her adult daughter and her grand-daughter who left the states for Paris with absolutely no trace at all. Fiona is going mad trying to find them and enlists the help of friends.

This is a beautiful, yet sad novel about friendships, love, art, everything. As depressing as the storyline is, I found myself looking forward to reading it. It seemed very hopeful in places and I appreciated those moments. We picked this for our book club pick this month and it will get a lot of discussion I think.

I will say, that as I read this book, I kept searching through my blog to see if I had read it before. According to my blog and GoodReads, no. I’ve not read it before but it felt very familiar. It did remind me a little bit of A Little Life. The Great Believers doesn’t deliver the gut punch that A Little Life did, but the tone and the friendships are similar.

I highly recommend this one. The art bits are lovely and the relationships are strong.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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