3 of the Best from the Belle Book Club Beat
The nights are now dark, the leaves are down. Don’t fight it anymore, rotate the wardrobe and embrace the cozy. For that you are going to need some good book recommendations. Here are three options for your autumn reading, based on what’s hot on the book club beat.
Here’s the line-up:
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
The Whisper Network by Chandler Baker
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
- Three Women
It’s likely you’ve heard something of this. (Whispers: yes, it’s got dirty bits in it). When it was suggested as a read in my book club with a preliminary sell in as “it’s about sex’, it got unanimously voted in. It’s more than just a bit of smut though. Billed as non-fiction (i.e. truth!) and based on 8 years of research into the intricacies of desire, Taddeo started this as a study of men, but ultimately found more interesting material from the female perspective.
The book rotates around 3 women’s true stories, Maggie, a young girl who has a relationship with a teacher, Lina, an affection starved housewife who engages in an affair and Sloane, a beautiful and successful restaurateur who has group sex and sex with other men in cahoots with her husband. You’re gonna read it right?
Why you should read it:
For the sheer, blissful, guilt free nosiness of it. Whilst this is billed as non-fiction, I cannot imagine EVER sharing the detail that is reported back in this book with any other human being. They are not your everyday stories, but at the same time they are someone’s everyday story. There was an inevitability in my book club discussion to the question: Which character did you relate to? No one did or admitted to any. With slightly shifty eyes and uncomfortable movement in our seats I think more was relatable than most would ever admit to and that I believe is the beauty of this book.
- The Whisper Network
This one starts with a mysterious death then back tracks in time to the lead up to it in a story that aligns to the #metoo movement. Structurally, for anyone who has read it, it’s similar to Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty with flashes to detective interviews and alternating points of view. There are 5 key characters, another Sloane, Ardie, Grace, Rosalita and Katherine, all of whom in some guise work for a Dallas based sportswear company called Truviv. You’ve got the tough, feisty senior one with a stay at home husband, a new, still pumping mother, a Mexican cleaning lady and the young, beautiful and fresh newbie that appears to threaten the status quo.
All of the women interact and have history with Ames Garrett, a guy billed to become the company’s new CEO. He’s not a great guy.
Why you should read it
For the likely recognition. For me, mysterious deaths aside, it was again, the everyday small things that I found to be pretty therapeutic.
Reading this, I had so many quiet such moments of personal, professional retrospection. A great example was that time I was shouted at in a meeting by a very senior man at a place I worked, for politely expressing a differing opinion to him. I spent a long time feeling bad over that and reprimanding myself for my lack of respect and poor judgement. Reading this book however just made me see it in the correct light. In that instant, I was doing my job well, it was him who was not.
- An American Marriage
This is a multi-faceted book. At one turn, it’s about racism and injustice, another about marriage and another about human nature. It takes a successful and promising newlywed couple, Roy and Celestial and throws them into a devasting nightmare. Roy is incarcerated for potentially 12 years for a crime he, his wife and the reader know he didn’t commit. The book is structured in letters and person to reader accounts of what happens next, adding in the voice of Andre, Celestial’s childhood best friend. Once I was about a third of the way into this, I couldn’t leave it alone, sneaking my kindle out at any opportunity to read it.
Why you should read it?
To ask yourself the question – what (TF) would you do? And what does that mean? For me the prospect of wrongful imprisonment is up there in the worst fears list with fall into a box of spiders. At the trial, I’m screaming. All the days Roy is in prison I’m screaming. LET HIM (ME!) OUT! How do you ever come to terms with that? Then, in the shoes of Celestial, knowing its unjust but still having a life. Would you suffer the injustice too by giving up your own life? Should you? Knowing it should never happen, is that enough?
OK, go and get your bust snuggling blanket and go into book hibernation. If you choose any of these let us know your thoughts and share any others you’ve got too. We’re in this Winter thing together.
