The Tattooist of Auschwitz Book Club Questions and Recipe

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I provide your book club with a brief summary, a recipe, and discussion questions in that order!

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is one of the most popular books of recent years. It tells the true story of Lale Sokolov, who became the tattooist of Auschwitz during his many years at the concentration camp, tattooing numbers on incoming prisoners. One day, Lale tattoos the arm of a beautiful girl and, despite the circumstances, it is love at first sight. The book chronicles the love affair of Lale and Gita, their time at Auschwitz, and their struggle for survival.

The novel is the debut of Heather Morris, who recently released a sequel titled Cilka’s Journey. If you’ve read the novel, you recognize the name from one of the characters.

Morris originally wrote the novel as a screenplay after meeting Lale Sokolov and learning his story. For years she tried to get film interest. When that faltered, she rewrote the story in novel form.

Unfortunately, to me, the novel read like a screenplay that had been lightly filled in with narrative. The story itself is fascinating and, while it could have been one of the best novels I’ve ever read based on the story alone, it fell flat to me due to the sparse writing. I often felt like I was being told, “Lale did this or that,” rather than experiencing what happened through Lale’s narrative.

The good news is that you may not read it in the same way I did. Many readers have absolutely fallen in love with the novel. There are over 25,000 Amazon reviews alone, which is unheard of. And, while I felt like the writing wasn’t what I normally expect from a novel, I did enjoy learning Lale’s story.

Pride and Prejudice Book Club Questions and Recipe

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For Pride and Prejudice, I provide your book club with a brief summary, a recipe, and discussion questions in that order!

What is there not to love about Pride and Prejudice? It is a book about nothing and everything at the same time. I love how it’s mundane and extraordinary. That it’s about relationships, which are the most important things in life.

Jane Austen was only 21 when she first drafted the book we would later know as Pride and Prejudice. And, even at that young age, she was able to capture the nuances of love and friendship and family so beautifully. It took 17 years before it was finally published, but, thankfully for all of us, it was. It’s popularity has only grown in the last few decades with well-done television and film adaptions.

I have read Pride and Prejudice at least four times. As many people have said, each reread of a Jane Austen work brings something new to the surface, some intricacy you missed before. Even now, two hundred years after its publication, Pride and Prejudice remains a timeless masterpiece that can speak through the changes of history right to the heart of the reader.

Wuthering Heights Book Club Questions and Recipe

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For Wuthering Heights, I provide your book club with a brief summary, a recipe, and discussion questions in that order!

Wuthering Heights was the first and only novel of Emily Bronte. Bronte, whose famous sisters Charlotte and Anne were also writers, published the novel under a male alias, Ellis Bronte in 1847 just before her death.

It is a dark tale of passion and obligation, of tortured hearts and unmet longings, and, most importantly, of the destruction revenge brings. Destruction, not so much on the victims of the revenge, but on the tormentor.

For some readers it is the most sadly beautiful star-crossed lover tale. For others, it is a stark and cautionary tale of unforgiveness wrought into bitterness. For book clubs, it is ripe with discussion.

Whatever your feelings on Heathcliff and the onslaught he delivers, Bronte’s writing is superb. Her character development is amazing and the plot will have you wondering what in the world could happen next.

One Day in December Book Club Questions and Recipe

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For One Day in December, I provide your book club with a brief summary, a recipe, and discussion questions in that order!

One Day in December is Josie Silver’s debut novel, released in 2018. It was featured in Reese’s Book Club and has gone on to be a New York Times bestseller.

While this isn’t your Pulitzer prize winning book club pick, it is a really great love story with true-to-life characters and a love triangle plot that will have you reading until the end. It is a wonderful read if you’ve just finished something heavy. And, (hint hint title), it’s a great read for the holidays.

To give you a quick idea of whether or not you’ll like the novel, consider if you liked Bridget Jones’s Diary or Love Actually. If you did, then you’ll love this novel, which has similar themes as both books.

While some reviewers have classified this as a rom-com, I would say it leans just outside of that category and into the women’s fiction category by a hair. While you will get some of the classic rom-com feel, the characters also deal with some deeper internal struggles than you see in pure romance. The primary conflict arises because the main character cannot confess to her close-as-a-sister best-friend that the man she’s fallen in love with is the man the main character already fell in love with.

Friendship and what it means, what loyalties it asks of a person, is the primary issue explored. In addition, the main character experiences a self-discovery growth arc, as do several other characters.

One Day in December is also written in an interesting form, telling the story in short scenes that spread out over a period of ten years. Silver did a masterful job creating a unique form where such a long stretch of time is covered without leaving the reader feeling frustrated or confused.

The Giver of Stars and The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For The Giver of Stars and The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Comparison, I provide your book club with a brief summary and comparison, a recipe, and discussion questions in that order!

If you don’t know about it, there has been some controversy about the publication of The Giver of Stars soon after the publication of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.

I actually saw The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek long before The Giver of Stars released, but passed it by because I thought the subject might be a little heavy based on the description and I wasn’t in the mood for a heavy book. When The Giver of Stars released, I had no idea by the cover that it was about Pack Horse Librarians, but after reading the description, my interest was peaked and I decided to read it.

The controversy revolves around possible plagiarism on Jojo Moyes part, asserting that parts of The Giver of Stars are too similar to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek to be a coincidence.

I read The Giver of Stars first, unaware of the controversy. After reading, I was shocked to see the accusations from many readers in reviews, many of them citing the Buzzfeed article where the similarities are outlined. Instead of reading the article, I decided to read The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek next and form my own opinion.

After reading both, I was confused and surprised that so many readers were vehemently choosing one or the other. The books were very different to me and BOTH worth reading. I’ve completed separate posts going into more detail on each. You can check out the posts on The Giver of Stars and The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek for more.

Yes, the topic is Pack Horse Librarians, a Works Progress Administration program enacted by Roosevelt in the 1930s to bring books to rural Kentucky, but both authors created a book on the same subject in very different way. After I finished both books, I did finally read the article and, to me, the similarities outlined were minor.

If you disagree, think about this–this is a new subject to fiction. No other books I can think of have been written on it. Yet, there are hundreds to thousands of novels written about World War II. In those books, we expect to see spies, someone facing starvation, someone being tortured physically or mentally by a Nazi, etc.

It’s not surprising to me that Moyes and Richardson would have studied the time period and the facts and come up with story elements that coincidentally are similar. Including adding colored librarians, because of the times we are in (and it’s just important), placing antagonists along the lonely routes through the mountains, because that seems the most logical way to add tension, and creating love interests, because readers love and expect this. As a writer, I read with that eye. I’m always considering what I would add to a book on the subject, and I have to say I would have added some form of those things myself.

Let me talk a little about how the two novels are very different rather than scrutinizing their similarities.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a novel about a single woman who faces severe persecution because of her Blue skin. This alone is worth reading about because it’s based on the real-life blue-skinned people of Kentucky, a new subject and fascinating for me. She is also a Pack Horse Librarian who takes books via horseback to her patrons in rural Appalachia. The book is primarily about her inner struggle to accept herself. It is written in a literary style. It does an exceptional job of highlighting the true-to-life details of life in Appalachia. And, it should be on your book club list.

The Giver of Stars is a friendship novel about five Pack Horse Librarians. It centers on two of the women and follows their struggles through love and life. The women fight to find their voices in a time and place where women didn’t have much say. It is a plot-driven novel that will have you cheering, but many of the true-to-life details of life in Appalachia are glossed over or not addressed. Still, any book club would love this book.