January Book Club 📚
Plus, a January Bonus Read, A Preview of 2025, Some Special News & More
Happy first Tuesday of 2025, book friends. I wrote this yesterday after preparing for this forecasted windstorm that I was hoping would be nowhere near as bad as it was looking like it may be, but considering it arrived 12 hours early, the worst is yet to come tonight, and I’ve been up since 3:30am, the universe may be thinking otherwise. So I’m thinking now’s a good time to hit you all with some books! If you lose power, either from lines down or SCE’s preemptive power outages, what better time to read? We’ve got two meet ups this month and the unintentional theme seems to be love and resilience which I hope resonates for you right now. Happy New Year!
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January’s Read: Intermezzo
The publisher’s synopsis: THE GLOBAL #1 BESTSELLER. From the author of the multimillion-copy bestseller Normal People, an exquisitely moving story about grief, love and family.
' Intermezzo is perfect ... Is there a better novelist at work right now?' Observer
'Her most mature and moving book to date ... I read it in a state of rapture.' Sunday Times
'If a perfect Sally Rooney novel exists, this might just be it ... Her best novel yet.' Evening Standard
'Rooney has discovered her full literary prowess.' Independent
Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties - successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father's death, he's medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women - his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined. For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude - a period of desire, despair and possibility - a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.
The quickie synopsis: “A Sally Rooney backlash, in certain quarters, has been building. Her books are too white, it is said, and her politics too soft. She can be, in pursuit of a love story, a bit corny — or so it is said. Her success rankles. Midnight release parties are scheduled in many bookstores for her new novel, “Intermezzo,” as if it were “Harry Potter,” Book 8. These parties may be cheerful communal events for some. For others, they are deeply uncool. Clearly this book is going to divide people. “Intermezzo” is Sally Rooney with a bit more butter and cream. Yes, please, waiter. Call me a fool for love, but this oft-jaundiced reader found this meal to be discerning, fattening, old-school and delicious.” <Read the full NYT Review>
Discussion: We’ll be meeting in person at a local spot (TBA) to discuss this one on Wednesday, January 22 at 7pm.
Please RSVP by email to beautifulaltadenaog@gmail.com and I’ll share meetup details with you the week of the event. Details will also be updated in our shared calendar.* Check out some of the Discussion Questions for this one online here and here.
*New to the Book Club? Scroll to the bottom for info on our shared calendar and how to add it to yours.
January’s Bonus Read: How to Winter
This month we also have a Bonus Read. A while back we read Wintering by Katherine May and the general consensus was that, well, we wanted to love it but it could have been better. This one comes with great reviews, some interviews and related stories in the NYT and The Guardian and should make for an interesting discussion comparing the two.
The publisher’s synopsis: A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2024
A blend of mindset science, original research, and cultural insights for cultivating a positive “wintertime mindset,” to vanquish winter blues and find joy and comfort in dark times year-round.
Do you dread the end of Daylight Saving Time and grouch about the long, chilly season of gray skies and ice? Do you find yourself in a slump every January and February? What if there were a way to rethink this time of year? Psychologist and winter expert Kari Leibowitz’s galvanizing How to Winter uses mindset science to help readers embrace winter as a season to be enjoyed, not endured—and in turn, learn powerful lessons that can impact our mental wellbeing throughout the year.
Kari Leibowitz moved above the Arctic Circle – where the sun doesn’t rise for two months each winter –expecting to research the season’s negative effects on mental health, only to find that inhabitants actually looked forward to it with delight and enthusiasm. Leibowitz has since travelled to places on earth with some of the coldest, darkest, longest and most intense winters, and discovered the power of “wintertime mindset”— viewing the season as full of opportunity and wonder. Impactful strategies for cultivating this wintertime mindset can teach us not just about braving the gray, cold months of the year, but also the darker and more difficult seasons of life.
Inspired by cutting-edge psychological and behavioral science research as well as cultures worldwide that find warmth and joy in winter’s extremes, How To Winter provides readers with concrete tools for making winter wonderful wherever they live and harnessing the power of small mindset changes with big impact to help readers embrace every season of life.
The quickie synopsis: Kari Leibowitz, PhD, is an internationally recognized health psychologist, a writer, and a speaker with a doctorate in psychology from Stanford University. As a US-Norway Fulbright Scholar living in the Arctic, she pioneered research on wintertime mindsets, and her workshops teach audiences around the world how to harness the power of mindset and embrace the darkest season. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post, and her work has been covered by The Guardian, CNN, National Geographic, Forbes, BBC, and New Scientist. Check out the NYT story with the author.
Discussion: We’ll have a virtual meet up for this one on Tuesday, January 28 at 7pm. Please RSVP by email (beautifulaltadenaog@gmail.com). You can find the Google MeetUp link in our shared calendar.
2025 Book Club Preview
I know many of you like to read or just plan ahead. Check out the calendar for a preview of more upcoming reads and books! We’ve got some amazing picks this year I’m excited to share with you. Spoiler alert: We’ve been talking about starting the Fourth Wing series and it’s happening!
About That Special News…
Remember I said I had some special news? I do! Back in November we read I Make Envy on Your Disco by Eric Schnall. A read we all loved but that a few of you who would have preferred or need to listen missed when the audiobook release date was delayed. Well, it looks like we’ll be setting up a special date to discuss this one again! Eric reached out to me after hearing we’d read and discussed the book and offered to join us either virtually or in person for a chat. Stay tuned for more when we’ve set a date! Read more about Eric and the book in our November Book Club newsletter.
Follow the Book Club on Instagram
We use the stories in our Instagram @BeautifulAltadena to share events, happenings and news – and our Book Club picks! Follow us and look for the book club stories highlight for the latest.
The Book Club Calendar
ICYMI, you can find all of our Book Club Reads, Meet Up Calendar and RSVP links (or email) in our shared Book Club Google calendar. For those who aren’t familiar, with a shared Google Calendar link you can add this calendar to your own Google Calendar and never miss or forget about a Book Club read or event. If you were to never open another email from us, you can find everything you need to participate in Book Club, including books we’re reading, dates we’re meeting, links to RSVP to meet ups, and even links to our Google Meet rooms for virtual gatherings, all in the calendar. Just add the link to your existing calendar, et voila! On a Mac with iCal? No problem. Use this link to sync this calendar to yours. Need a little tutorial on how to add Google calendars? Scroll to ‘Use a link to add a public calendar’ and read up here.
About the Beautiful Altadena Book Club
A little Book Club history– the book club started in late 2019 as one of the Beautiful Altadena (BA) Facebook group’s subgroups and had it’s first gathering in January 2020, just before a little pandemic kicked off and we quickly moved from in person to virtual meetups. One of our group members suggested we start a book club but ultimately didn’t have time to follow through and I picked up where they left off. I took this up wanting to rekindle my love of reading and hoping to meet some new locals who shared my love of books.
We started out with one title a month but with larger groups wanting to meet up over time, and some voracious readers among us, we moved to two books a month (that is, most months, when we don’t have a short month and when we haven’t chosen a long read).
For the uninitiated and interested, we meet up on the third Wednesday of the month and again on the last Tuesday of the month for our “bonus” read. Moving forward, the Wednesday meetups will be in person and the Tuesdays will be virtual, unless otherwise noted.
‘Til Next Time… Happy Reading!
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