Welcome to Book + Bottle’s Fiction Book Club! We get together with a diverse group of folks to read great books and talk about them over glasses of wine. We started with an online Facebook group so we could connect before the store opened, and now that the store is open, we’re meeting and talking in person! And it’s just lovely. I love watching members gather and become friends after just one meeting. We have members who have never been in a book club before and members who are in three other book clubs! All are welcome.
Schedule
We meet on the last Thursday of each month in the store from 6 - 7:30PM. We do announcements and intros, grab drinks, and get settled from 6 - 6:30 PM, then discussion runs promptly from 6:30-7:30. The store is open till 9PM so you can continue the conversation with your new friends!
The fiction book club is very popular and gets extremely crowded. Please arrive as early as possible to snag a seat, knowing that we may run out of space in our little shop.
This month discussing: Shark Heart by Emily Habeck
For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He will retain most of his consciousness, memories, and intellect, but his physical body will gradually turn into a great white shark. As Lewis develops the features and impulses of one of the most predatory creatures in the ocean, his complicated artist’s heart struggles to make peace with his unfulfilled dreams.
At first, Wren internally resists her husband’s fate. Is there a way for them to be together after Lewis changes? Then, a glimpse of Lewis’s developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with her college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds. Woven throughout this “heart-wringing” (Adam Roberts, internationally bestselling author of Salt) novel is the story of Wren’s mother, Angela, who becomes pregnant with Wren at fifteen in an abusive relationship amidst her parents’ crumbling marriage. In the present, all of Wren’s grief eventually collides, and she is forced to make an impossible choice.
A sweeping love story that is at once lyrical and funny, airy and visceral, Shark Heart is an unforgettable, gorgeous novel about life’s perennial questions, the fragility of memories, finding joy amidst grief, and creating a meaningful life. This daring debut marks the arrival of a wildly talented new writer abounding with originality, humor, and heart.