RWL: Episode 10-01: A book about a vacation

Reading With Libraries season ten logo

Welcome to Reading With Libraries!

Thank you for joining us again on our book group and Reader’s advisory podcast! 

Our organization is the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we work with all types of libraries. We are here to talk about books and share library ideas!

This season we are exploring all new ideas for books and book suggestions, so you can expand your reading horizons, and share more information with your library community. We are looking at prompts from the 2023 PopSugar reading challenge this season. You can read along with their challenge, linked in our show notes, or just enjoy some different books. 

This week will be a fun one, because we can all use a vacation right now. And of course it’s always fun to have your favorite people on vacation with you. So we invited the coolest person we know: Ariel Kirst, our official Podcast Correspondent, from the Great River Regional Library System!

Check out our show notes page for links to our beverages, our resources, and the books we share today.

Beverages:

This is, of course, a book group. And every book group needs to have beverages, so you really get the feel for your reading! 

Our beverages this week are from the blog article 40 Cocktails That Will Make You Feel Like You Are On Vacation. The pictures on this page are so pretty, you may get lost there! And if you like to drink things, not always with alcohol, you can drop that out of a lot of the recipes.

Let’s get past our reality of cold and snow outside today, and enjoy some sunny and warm vacation beverages!

Rum Punch from Belize

“we celebrate rum cocktails in all their glory. This time, we daydream about snorkeling and sunbathing in Belize. The national drink of Belize is Rum Punch, and the Belize Tourism Board has been kind enough to share their version of this local favorite.

Ingredients

– 2 cups of White Rum

– 1 cup of Coconut Rum

– 2½ cups of Fresh Orange Juice and Pineapple Juice

– 1/2 cup of Fresh Lime Juice

– 3 tblsp Grenadine

Instructions

1. Simply stir all the ingredients together in a pitcher or punch bowl, and chill before serving.

2. Use short rocks glasses full of ice, and garnish with slices of orange and pineapple or cherries. This recipe yields 8-10 servings.”

Dark and Stormy from Bermuda

“If you have been to Bermuda, you are likely quite familiar with their national drink, the Dark ‘n Stormy® . If you haven’t been, it is time to familiarize yourself with this quintessential Bermudan beverage. The drink is trademarked by Bermudian rum company Gosling’s Rum and they have been kind enough to share their recipe with us. 

Ingredients

– 4-5 oz. Gosling’s Stormy Ginger Beer

– 1.5 oz. Gosling’s Black Seal Rum

– Ice

– Lime for Garnish”

Genre Discussion:

Vacations! When we are planning them out, they seem like such a great thing. We’re tired, we need to recharge, we want to try new things and see new places and meet new people. The reality is not always quite as fun. Everyone has been on a bad vacation – the reservations fell through, you got sick, it rained the whole time.

But in literature, those problems get magnified. There are wacky rom-com twists, maybe involving people who are mistaken for their own twins, or are forced to go on vacation with a hated co-worker. Vacation mystery stories will inevitably mean discovery of a dead body (or two), which requires other vacation plans to be put on hold. Or you discover horrible family secrets. Or are involved in a natural disaster.

No matter what, it’s not all going to go smoothly. And things will be wacky or scary or intense. That is just what we are looking for in a book! Because we like our vacations problem-free and fun-focused – but we like our books to have some action, adventure, romance, and all sorts of unexpected events!

Suggested Reading Resources:

Our Book Discussion

We have our beverages, we are familiar with this week’s genre, let’s get to the book discussion! We will give you a list of all the books we share today. You can click on any of these links to go to Amazon.com for more information. If you buy anything while you are there, Amazon will give us a small percent of their profits from your purchase. Thanks in advance for helping to support the mission of CMLE – we appreciate it! 

Dark Tourist, by Hasanthika Sirisena

Dark tourism—visiting sites of war, violence, and other traumas experienced by others—takes different forms in Hasanthika Sirisena’s stunning excavation of the unexpected places (and ways) in which personal identity and the riptides of history meet. The 1961 plane crash that left a nuclear warhead buried near her North Carolina hometown, juxtaposed with reflections on her father’s stroke. A visit to Jaffna in Sri Lanka—the country of her birth, yet where she is unmistakably a foreigner—to view sites from the recent civil war, already layered over with the narratives of the victors. A fraught memory of her time as a young art student in Chicago that is uneasily foundational to her bisexual, queer identity today. The ways that life-changing impairments following a severe eye injury have shaped her thinking about disability and self-worth.

Deftly blending reportage, cultural criticism, and memoir, Sirisena pieces together facets of her own sometimes-fractured self to find wider resonances with the human universals of love, sex, family, and art—and with language’s ability to both fail and save us. Dark Tourist becomes then about finding a home, if not in the world, at least within the limitless expanse of the page.

The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins

Bears aren’t the only predators in these woods.

Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but at least they had each other. Now, with college and a two-thousand-mile separation looming on the horizon, they have one last chance to be together—a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest.

Simmering tensions lead to a detour off the trail and straight into a waking nightmare … and then into something far worse. Something that will test them in horrifying ways.

The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Tesla Crane, a brilliant inventor and an heiress, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between the Moon and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and the festering chowderheads who run security have the audacity to arrest her spouse. Armed with banter, martinis and her small service dog, Tesla is determined to solve the crime so that the newlyweds can get back to canoodling―and keep the real killer from striking again.

Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn

In this radiant, highly anticipated debut, a cast of unforgettable women battle for independence while a maelstrom of change threatens their Jamaican village.

Capturing the distinct rhythms of Jamaican life and dialect, Nicole Dennis- Benn pens a tender hymn to a world hidden among pristine beaches and the wide expanse of turquoise seas. At an opulent resort in Montego Bay, Margot hustles to send her younger sister, Thandi, to school. Taught as a girl to trade her sexuality for survival, Margot is ruthlessly determined to shield Thandi from the same fate. When plans for a new hotel threaten their village, Margot sees not only an opportunity for her own financial independence but also perhaps a chance to admit a shocking secret: her forbidden love for another woman. As they face the impending destruction of their community, each woman―fighting to balance the burdens she shoulders with the freedom she craves―must confront long-hidden scars. From a much-heralded new writer, Here Comes the Sun offers a dramatic glimpse into a vibrant, passionate world most outsiders see simply as paradise.

The River, by Peter Weller

Wynn and Jack have been best friends since college orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing. When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and picking blueberries, and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey.

One night, with the fire advancing, they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank; the next day, a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the same man they heard? And if he is, where is the woman? From this charged beginning, master storyteller Peter Heller unspools a headlong, heart-pounding story of desperate wilderness survival.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, by Mackenzi Lee

A young bisexual British lord embarks on an unforgettable Grand Tour of Europe with his best friend/secret crush. An 18th-century romantic adventure for the modern age written by This Monstrous Thing author Mackenzi Lee – Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda meets the 1700s.

Henry “Monty” Montague doesn’t care that his roguish passions are far from suitable for the gentleman he was born to be. But as Monty embarks on his grand tour of Europe, his quests for pleasure and vice are in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy.

So Monty vows to make this year long escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

Witty, dazzling, and intriguing at every turn, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is an irresistible romp that explores the undeniably fine lines between friendship and love.

Death by Water, by Kerry Greenwood

The nice men at P&O are worried. A succession of jewelry thefts from the first-class passengers is hardly the best advertisement for their cruises. Especially when it is likely that a passenger is the thief.

Phryne Fisher, with her Lulu bob, green eyes, cupid’s bow lips, and sense that the ends justify the means, is just the person to mingle seamlessly with the upper classes and take on a case of theft on the high seas—or at least on the S.S. Hinemoa, on a luxury cruise to New Zealand. She is carrying the Great Queen of Sapphires, the Maharani, as bait.

Shipboard romances, champagne cocktails, erotic photographers, jealous swains, Mickey Finns, jazz musicians, blackmail, and attempted murder mingle before the thieves find out—as have countless love-smitten men before them—that where the glamorous and intelligent Phryne is concerned, resistance is futile.

Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, by  Elyssa Friedland

In its heyday, The Golden Hotel was the crown jewel of the hotter-than-hot Catskills vacation scene. For more than sixty years, the Goldman and Weingold families – best friends and business partners – have presided over this glamorous resort which served as a second home for well-heeled guests and celebrities. But the Catskills are not what they used to be – and neither is the relationship between the Goldmans and the Weingolds. As the facilities and management begin to fall apart, a tempting offer to sell forces the two families together again to make a heart-wrenching decision. Can they save their beloved Golden or is it too late?

Long-buried secrets emerge, new dramas and financial scandal erupt, and everyone from the traditional grandparents to the millennial grandchildren wants a say in the hotel’s future. Business and pleasure clash in this fast-paced, hilarious, nostalgia-filled story, where the hotel owners rediscover the magic of a bygone era of nonstop fun even as they grapple with what may be their last resort.

Lost Roses, by Martha Hall Kelly

It is 1914, and the world has been on the brink of war so often,many New Yorkers treat the subject with only passing interest. Eliza Ferriday is thrilled to be traveling to St. Petersburg with Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanovs. The two met years ago one summer in Paris and became close confidantes. Now Eliza embarks on the trip of a lifetime, home with Sofya to see the splendors of Russia: the church with the interior covered in jeweled mosaics, the Rembrandts at the tsar’s Winter Palace, the famous ballet.

But when Austria declares war on Serbia and Russia’s imperial dynasty begins to fall, Eliza escapes back to America, while Sofya and her family flee to their country estate. In need of domestic help, they hire the local fortune-teller’s daughter, Varinka, unknowingly bringing intense danger into their household.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Eliza is doing her part to help the White Russian families find safety as they escape the revolution. But when Sofya’s letters suddenly stop coming, she fears the worst for her best friend. 

From the turbulent streets of St. Petersburg and aristocratic countryside estates to the avenues of Paris where a society of fallen Russian émigrés live to the mansions of Long Island, the lives of Eliza, Sofya, and Varinka will intersect in profound ways. In her newest powerful tale told through female-driven perspectives, Martha Hall Kelly celebrates the unbreakable bonds of women’s friendship, especially during the darkest days of history.

Nine Liars, by Maureen Johnson

Senior year at Ellingham Academy for Stevie Bell isn’t going well. Her boyfriend, David, is studying in London. Her friends are obsessed with college applications. With the cold case of the century solved, Stevie is adrift. There is nothing to distract her from the questions pinging around her brain—questions about college, love, and life in general.

Relief comes when David invites Stevie and her friends to join him for study abroad, and his new friend Izzy introduces her to a double-murder cold case. In 1995, nine friends from Cambridge University went to a country house and played a drunken game of hide-and-seek. Two were found in the woodshed the next day, murdered with an ax.

The case was assumed to be a burglary gone wrong, but one of the remaining seven saw something she can’t explain. This was no break-in. Someone’s lying about what happened in the woodshed.

Seven suspects. Two murders. One killer still playing a deadly game.

Conclusion:

Thank you so much for joining us on Reading With Libraries! Join us next Thursday with another topic or genre and many more books to share and discuss. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss a single episode! 

And if you want to hear more about the work we do in libraries or expand your library skills, check out our podcast Linking Our Libraries! Right now that is dropping short episodes with a few book suggestions; so subscribe to get that every Tuesday.

Bring your book ideas, bring your beverages, and join us back here on Thursday! 

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