Author: Vanessa Diaz

Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. This week I’m battling a dumb head cold again because apparently I get one every time I fly back into Portland?! It’s all good though, because I’m hosting a Friendsgiving gathering next week and am having way too much fun Pinteresting foodstuffs and decor and catching up on some reading.

To the club!!

Nibbles and Sips – Leftover Do-overs

For most of my adult life, I’ve had to work the day after Thanksgiving. Sure, it was kind of a drag, but I actually sort of loved this tradition among coworkers of exchanging leftover food. Today’s club menu is all about twists on holiday leftovers.

Make a batch of these cranberry-apple hand pies with leftover cranberry sauce and pie dough. Throw all the savory stuff together with a little—or lot—of cheese to make an easy leftover skillet, or maybe stuff them in a crescent roll to make this ring of deliciousness. If you have leftover mash, make these fried potato balls. Oh, and about that cranberry sauce? Use some to whip up a batch of these cranberry bourbon cocktails.

Happy Bibliolodays! 

Thanksgiving is around the corner and you know what that means: it’s just about socially acceptable for me to play the Chipmunk Christmas song on repeat! Todays book club picks aren’t all about the holidays directly, but are books I think are great for holiday reading.

Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe by Melissa de la Cruz – The holidays are a wonderful time for a little romance! While I haven’t read this selection yet, I love the premise: it’s a gender-flipped retelling of the Austen classic set in contemporary America. When a snooty Miss Darcy is forced to go home to Pemberley, Ohio for the holidays, one too many egg nogs is all it takes to bring her together with hometown slacker Luke Bennett. Holiday shenanigans ensue!

Book Club Bonus: I love a good gender flip twist on a classic don’t you? Talk about what that change does for the story: how it adds depth to the classic tale or sheds new light on it entirely, if it makes you feel differently about the characters you’ve known and loved (or not!) all this time.

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi – This book opens with a lovely story about family tradition involving a warm and spicy holiday carb. It takes a turn from there! When British schoolgirl Perdita appears to attempt suicide via ingestion of poisoned gingerbread, her mother Harriet finds a note that more or less reads, “Hey mum, BRB! Not really deadsies, just popped out to find that long-lost friend you often talk about!” That friend’s name is Gretel and the mythical place Perdita has gone off in search of is Druhástrana, the faraway land where Harriet spent her youth that most people don’t believe exists. The story Perdita has to tell when she wakes up is… a trip.

Book Club Bonus: Helen Oyeyemi doesn’t just retell old stories; she burns their clothes, dyes their hair, and gives them fake passports. Once you unpack all of that word witchery, discuss the unique mother-daughter relationship, the echoes of the Hansel and Gretel story, and the book’s departure from the classic fairy tale.

City of Thieves by David Benioff – An uninspired thirty-something writer interviews his Russian grandfather about his experience in Nazi-occupied Leningrad. In his story, two young men meet when they’re captured, facing certain death when they’re suddenly released from prison. The catch? Their lives will be spared if and only if they can procure a dozen eggs for a colonel’s daughter’s wedding cake. Something about the descriptions of the cold feels apropos for the time of year, and the coming-of-age story about (very) difficult choices made in a fight for survival makes for good club chatter.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss the intersection of patriotism and grief, how war distorts our sense of normalcy, the ways in which propaganda works the same way today as it always has in the past.

Related: Yes, it’s by that David Benioff, the one of Game of Thrones fame.

Suggestion Section

The celebs Jameela Jamil would pick for a celebrity book club.

Jami Attenberg’s All This Could Be Yours is BuzzFeed’s December book club pick.

Remember Noname, the Chicago rapper who started a book club focused on LGBTQ authors and writers of color? Noname’s Book Club picks can now be reserved at the Chicago Public Library.

Hurry! If you haven’t entered our Feminist Book Club Box giveaway yet, you have until tomorrow, November 21, 2019 at 11:45 PM EST.

Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with your burning book club questions or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the Audiobooks newsletter, get it on the Read Harder podcast, and watch me booktube every Friday too.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa

More Resources:
– Our Book Group In A Box guide
– List your group on the Book Group Resources page

Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. I’m back in Portland and have covered myself in the many fleece things I purchased to prepare for the cold. I know temps in the 50s are cake for many, but for a San Diegan? Might as well be in Siberia.

Truth? I love it though, it’s perfect reading weather. And on that note: to the club!

This week the internet is one big Best Of list: best books of the year, best books of the decade. With this in mind, I thought I would go back into time and resurrect some older popular book club books and challenge you all to a re-read. Let’s take it back!

Nibbles and Sips: Meat and Cheese

Pair classic reads with a classic book club staple: a simple cheese and charcuterie set up. My “simple,” I admit, is another person’s “elaborate and overstuffed.” Here’s how I build a bomb.com meat and cheese plate.

• Meats and cheeses: I always serve three meats and at least three cheeses. Suggestions: hard salami or chorizo, regular sliced salami, prosciutto, jamon serrano, and sharp cheddar, manchego, triple-cream brie, goat cheese, smoked gouda. Cheese is life.
• Carbs: I use good crackers, but also toast some crostini. A tip I got from a friend: rub the baguette slices with garlic first and sprinkle them with that umami seasoning blend from Trader Joe’s.
• Add-ins: This is where the plate goes from just good to 100% that b*tch. Add honey, grain mustard, fig jam, roasted garlic, dark chocolate, pickled veggies, apple slices, grapes or other fruit, and olives. My latest fave: the Sweet & Spicy Jalapeños and Chili Crunch from Trader Joe’s. No, this is not sponsored by Trader Joe’s.

Build your platter! Place the ramekins on a large wooden cutting board or other platter, then fill them with olives or spreads, honey, etc. Arrange the cheeses, meats, and other tasty things around them, adding some sprigs of rosemary or basil for some color. Here’s a photo for inspiration!

Book Club Throwbacks: The end of the decade has inspired me to do a re-read of a book I read several years ago; I’d like to see how I feel about it with the passage of time and in today’s social climate. Do this with book club and see how your interpretations have changed.

A note about this endeavor: I am not telling you to un-like your favorite books. I do think it’s important to think about them critically as each of us grows in our social awareness. I have loved some pretty problematic books in the past (looking at you, Junot Diaz); I won’t ever try to lessen what those books did for me at that time, but am able to unpack today what they got wrong back then. That’s progress.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett – The Help is still a beloved read for a lot of people, but even Viola Davis has come forward to say she has misgivings about her role in the book’s film adaptation. I’ve never read the book, but from the film can deduce that 2019 me is more woke and more wise than I was in 2010; I might take issue with the white savior complex and sanitization of the black experience depicted in this book.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – I was all about this book and all of its WTFery when it took the world by storm, and don’t feel guilty for doing so. When I think back on it though, I wonder if I’d read its portrayal of a women as less feminist and more misogynist, playing into the stereotype of a “crazy” and hysterical woman out to trap a man. Discuss.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes – I am one of those people who read, sobbed over, and really loved this book when I read it several years ago, and recommended both it and its sequels to other people for a long time. Looking at it with fresh eyes, I’m pretty sure I’d feel differently about its portrayal of disability. I think I’d still enjoy the story, but a discussion of what it gets wrong is certainly in order.

Suggestion Section

It’s almost time! Yours truly is hosting the next installment of Persist, our feminist book club run entirely on Instagram.

Oprah’s latest book club selection is Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout.

Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with your burning book club questions or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the Audiobooks newsletter, get it on the Read Harder podcast, and watch me booktube every Friday too.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa

More Resources:
– Our Book Group In A Box guide
– List your group on the Book Group Resources page

Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. This week is all kinds of hectic because my cousin/BFF is getting married! I’ve got dress fittings, speech writing, and errands to run in addition to work and, I dunno, sleep? It’s going to be one for the books!

With all of that in mind, this week we’re talking marriage. To the club!!

Nibbles & Sips: For Better, For Worse, In Good Times and in Bad

I went back and forth with myself as to what libations and foodstuffs might pair well with this week’s book recs. I decided to go with a sweet and sour menu as a parallel to the ups and downs—the sweet and the sour, one might say—of the relationships explored.

Try these Japanese-style sweet and sour meatballs: sesame oil, ginger, soy sauce, and mirin combine to make a perfect, punchy bite. Pair with a simple rice dish- some fluffy jasmine rice would be lovely here.

For drinks, DIY some sweet and sour mix to make any number of delicious cocktails, like this apricot sour. For a non-alcoholic option, I love a flavored lemonade. Try this ginger version that’s both sweet and delightfully tart.

Marriage: It’s Complicated

These titles explore the darker, more complicated parts of marriage, questioning the limits of loyalty when people are thrown into extraordinary circumstances. Discuss the whole idea of till-death-do-us-part and what you’re supposed to do when your world is rocked in ways you never saw coming. Also, talk about the idea of the “perfect” couple. Is there such a thing? Talk about secrets in a marriage: is total honesty the key to a happy marriage, or is some level of secrecy not only good but essential for that union?

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones – Celestial and Roy are newlyweds in the American South whose lives are torn apart when Roy is convicted and imprisoned for a rape he didn’t commit. This gut-wrenching exploration of love, loyalty, race, and Black masculinity does that thing that I love and kind of hate: one minute you’re completely in one character’s corner, then POW! You get another perspective and everything you think you know and feel is flipped on its head. I know this phrase is thrown around a lot, but this gave me all the feels: your heart can’t help but break as you watch the slow demise of a love that was once so promising.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff – The first half of the book focuses primarily on Lotto, half of the glamorous “it” couple that is Lotto and Mathilde. You think you know exactly what everything is and how their relationship works, then the second half of the book yanks the wool off your eyes and yells, “SYKE!” You may read that description and assume that the reveals of the perspective switch will be obvious, but they’re not. Lauren Groff goes to some deep, dark, and surprising places, asking readers to examine the motivations behind the secrets we keep. I honestly didn’t love the book until I got to that flip, then finally understood its brilliance and why the book made such a splash. Lauren Groff’s beautiful way with words doesn’t hurt either.

Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller – Gil Coleman is jarred when thinks he sees his wife Ingrid from a bookshop window; she disappeared decades prior and is believed by most to have drowned. Gil’s daughter Flora has always believed that Ingrid is still alive, so she comes home to care for her father and hopefully prove she’s right. The story is told both in present day and in flashbacks to the early days of Ingrid and Gil’s relationship, the flashbacks coming in the form of letters Ingrid wrote to Gil that reveal the truth about their marriage. She never gave the letters to her husband though; she hid each of them in the pages of his many books. Were they happy? Why did she leave? Was she killed? Has she been alive all this time?

Suggestion Section

Epic Reads suggests this batch of YA book club books and it’s a great list! I cosign almost every one of these books (I haven’t read the others yet) from authors like Angie Thomas, Samira Ahmed, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Natasha Diaz.

Austin-based subscription kids’ book club Literati has secured $12 (deep breath) million dollars in funding. TWELVE. MILL-EE-ON. Whew!

This roundup of November celeb book club picks includes Reese because duh, but also Andrew Luck, Kirsten Dunst, Jenn Bush Hager, and Sarah Jessica Parker.

I love this new endeavor from Riverhead Books; Sip & Stitch is “a new spin on the classic ‘book club’” that pairs active discussion with active hands.

Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with your burning book club questions or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the Audiobooks newsletter, get it on the Read Harder podcast, and watch me booktube every Friday too.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa

More Resources:
– Our Book Group In A Box guide
– List your group on the Book Group Resources page

Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed.

Thank you to all of you again who continue to reach out with condolences over my grandfather. We buried him last week and he’s at peace now. It gets easier every day.

As for this week’s theme, I’m suddenly very aware of how little time is left in this year (and decade, good grief). Thanksgiving is but a few weeks away, which got me thinking a lot about the ways we’ve constructed narratives that paint American history in such a glossy and positive light. I want to dedicate some time in book club to reckon with the truth, be it ugly, pretty, or all of the above.

To the club!!

Nibbles and Sips

Hmm… what snacks go with ugly truths and conspiracy?! I suppose good ol’ comfort food, because we’re gonna need it!

Personally, I look for any excuse to enjoy fall foods. Try this butternut squash soup for a starter and this pork shoulder with basil sauce for the main course. If you don’t feel like basil sauce, I think chimichurri would be so perfect here too. If you’re down for some seafood instead, this scallop dish with a brown butter and lemon pan sauce comes together pretty quickly and it’s SO good. I always add extra lemon zest

For dessert, try these delectable baked apples that I can legit eat three of if left unsupervised. I might top these with a little cream cheese whipped with some brown sugar and a splash of vanilla extract because I do what I want.

For sips, go with some good ol’ American beer, or try this Fall From the Tree cocktail I’ve been meaning to try (bourbon, apple juice, cinnamon, and a few other fun things).

Umm…That’s Not How I Heard It

The version of history most of us got in school is not even close to the whole story (Columbus Day, I’m lookin’ at you, bruh). The truth is, of course, much less happy-pilgrims-and-natives-sharing-maize and a lot more this-land-was-your-land-but-now-its-ours-move-or-die-also-here’s-some-small-pox. So let’s read up, get informed, and then unpack the darker parts of our country’s legacy. Discuss which of the facts you encounter were the most shocking, and get into how the ground we laid when the country was founded directly correlate to the issues that divide us today.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Mrurders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

I used to handsell this all the time at the bookstore and my line every time was, “How the hell did we never learn about this?” The people of the Osage Nation were the richest people per capita in the world in the 1920s when oil was discovered on their land (land that, by the way, they were pushed onto in the first place). That’s when the Osage started dying one by one, and not by natural causes. Many of those who tried to investigate these suspicious deaths ended up dead too, so the newly-formed FBI eventually got involved under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover. What really happened to the Osage people is a downright scandalous conspiracy that I cannot believe I knew nothing about until two years ago.

These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore

I call this my “I need a Christmas gift for my history-loving father-in-law” recommendation, but it’s a great read for anyone who wants a broader and more accurate view of the United States’ past. It’s a meaty tome that goes back to 1492 and attempts to provide a more accurate and sobering account of our nation’s history. It’s nowhere near as pretty and altruistic as our textbooks have made it out to be; in fact, the truths told here are often uncomfortable and ones it’s about time they were reckoned with.

How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States  by Daniel Immerwahr

I own but have not yet taken on what is by numerous accounts a “fascinating, meticulously researched, & highly readable ‘revisionist history’ of the US shown through the lens of the territories and colonies that have been at the outlying edges of the American empire” (ripped that from the staff picks section of the indie I worked at, courtesy of owner Seth Marko). This book shows in very black and white terms that the objective has always been domination, expansion, capitalistic supremacy. Again, a lot of this narrative ain’t pretty, but of vital importance for any informed American.

Suggestion Section

We have some book club questions for Becoming for ya.

Today suggest these discussion points for Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House

From the Good Morning America Book Club: the recipe for Ana’s Pastelito Love Bites from Dominicana

This book club has been meeting for over 6 decades!

This feels a little Late to the Party of NBC, but here’s their list of celeb book clubs you might enjoy. They even went and threw in some up-and-comers: Oprah and Reece something?

Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with your burning book club questions or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the Audiobooks newsletter, get it on the Read Harder podcast, and watch me booktube every Friday too.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa

More Resources:
– Our Book Group In A Box guide
– List your group on the Book Group Resources page

Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed.

Thank you for all of the kind messages regarding my grandfather’s passing, It was a tough week but every day it gets a teeny bit easier. This week I finally got my vampire theme together, so let’s get straight to the blood suckers, shall we?

To the club!!

Nibbles and Sips – A Bloody Good Time

Why yes, I am suggesting a blood-themed menu. I add extra berries to this Blackberry Sage Margarita to make it extra thick and blood-like. Leave out the booze if you prefer, of course.

This Witches Blood cocktail is a mix of vodka and whiskey with cherry soda and schnapps for sweetness, and to give it that lovely plasma hue. I like tart cherry juice in place of soda in this as well.

For some snackage, these Blood Spatter Cookies are delightful. I love the delicate almond flavor, but leave out the extract if it’s not your bag.

Another idea is go full garlicpalooza because duh! we want to ward off the vampires and also I just reeeeally love garlic. There are so many recipes you could go with but you must try mozzarella garlic bread from Nigella Lawson’s At My Table. Use good chewy bread and fresh mozzarella. The crushed red peppers mixed in with the gooey cheesiness are so good!

Books That Suck (hehe)

Yeah sure. monsters who suck blood are, like scary. Know what’s scarier? The dark and twisted sh*t that regular ol’ humans are capable of; it’s terrifying! For each of these books, dig into the whole idea of what makes a monster, and how so much of our fear is rooted in the pondering of the dark sides of humanity, or simply in our “othering” of people or concepts we don’t understand.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova – I knew the legend of Dracula was based on a real person, but I didn’t realize just how gross and barbaric ol’ Vlad the Impaler really was until this book sent me down that internet rabbit hole. It’s a super fun blend of history and folklore about a young girl who finds a cache of letters that sends her on a wild ride through her family’s dark past. Also, Vlad is involved and he might… still…kinda… be alive? This kept me up reading late into the night, and gave me major wanderlust for Hungary, Romania, and Turkey.

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Vampires in Mexico? Take all of my money! Domingo is a garbage-collecting street kid and Atl a descendent of Aztec vampires, one with a penchant for blood herself who happens to be on the run. The two probs shouldn’t be friends because things don’t usually end well when hen one friend wants to suck the blood from the other, ya know? Of course, they grow attached and soon find it’s them against the world—a world of cops, vamps, and rivaling narco-vampire gangs—in the dark streets of Mexico City.

Fledgling by Octavia Butler – Confession: I’ve never read Octavia Butler! Shame! Shame! In this last of her novels, recommended to me many times over, a young, amnesiac girl discovers she’s a modified 53-year-old vampire. I hate when that happens! She sets out to learn more about the life that was stolen from her and realizes someone wants her and everyone she loves to perish.

Suggestion Section

• November book club picks from BuzzFeed and L.A. Times
• Stillwater prison in Minnesota held it’s inaugural book club. In a world where prisons are increasingly censoring what books get into inmates hands, if allowing them books at all, this story gives me hope.
• A list of all of Jenna Bush Hager’s book club picks since launching her Today Show book club
• Jess and Trisha discuss the pros and cons of book clubs on the latest episode of When in Romance
• The ONYX Book Club in Covington, GA is going 25 years strong! The club meets every other month at the home of a member where discussion of the book is followed by dinner. So rad!

Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with your burning book club questions or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the Audiobooks newsletter, get it on the Read Harder podcast, and watch me and my hair on the Book Riot YouTube channel every Friday too.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa

More Resources:
– Our Book Group In A Box guide
– List your group on the Book Group Resources page