Pride Among the Pines Book Club
Queer Lit Discussion Group
Meets Online
Second Friday of Every Month
7:30 pm
Meets Online
Second Friday of Every Month
7:30 pm
So, what's the book about?
Valentine Layton, the Duke of Malvern, has twin problems: literally.
It was always his father's hope that Valentine would marry Miss Arabella Tarleton. But, unfortunately, too many novels at an impressionable age have caused her to grow up...romantic. So romantic that a marriage of convenience will not do and after Valentine's proposal she flees into the night determined never to set eyes on him again. Arabella's twin brother, Mr. Bonaventure "Bonny" Tarleton, has also grown up...romantic. And fully expects Valentine to ride out after Arabella and prove to her that he's not the cold-hearted cad he seems to be. Despite copious misgivings, Valentine finds himself on a pell-mell chase to Dover with Bonny by his side. Bonny is unreasonable, overdramatic, annoying, and...beautiful? And being with him makes Valentine question everything he thought he knew. About himself. About love. Even about which Tarleton he should be pursuing.
If this sounds like something you would like to read, you can get your copy of the book from the store for 15% off when you order with us: in-store, online, over the phone (828.386.1219), or via email. Our booksellers will be happy to help you get the book in the format that you prefer!
Buy Online!
We are open to the public for in-store shopping & you can pickup your orders at the register. Our winter hours are:
Mon, Tue, Thur, Fri - 11am to 1:30pm & 2pm to 6pm Sat - 11am to 6pm Wed & Sun - Closed However, you can also pickup your book using the pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ and can ship anywhere in the United States. Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us! Finally, you can RSVP & add this event to your personal calendar--do that here! We hope to see you at our next meeting! Reviews & Interviews
Something Fabulous by Alexis Hall -- Publishers Weekly
‘Something Fabulous’ Review: A Hilarious Regency Romp With Heart -- Nerds & Beyond Bestselling author Alexis Hall has a staggering 4 queer romance novels out this year (2022) -- Today.com Q&A: Alexis Hall, Author of ‘Something Fabulous -- The Nerd Daily
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So, what's the book about?
Seamlessly transitioning between the absurd and the tenderhearted, balancing acerbic humor with sharp emotional depth, Afterparties offers an expansive portrait of the lives of Cambodian-Americans. As the children of refugees carve out radical new paths for themselves in California, they shoulder the inherited weight of the Khmer Rouge genocide and grapple with the complexities of race, sexuality, friendship, and family.
A high school badminton coach and failing grocery store owner tries to relive his glory days by beating a rising star teenage player. Two drunken brothers attend a wedding afterparty and hatch a plan to expose their shady uncle's snubbing of the bride and groom. A queer love affair sparks between an older tech entrepreneur trying to launch a "safe space" app and a disillusioned young teacher obsessed with Moby-Dick. And in the sweeping final story, a nine-year-old child learns that his mother survived a racist school shooter. This vibrant story collection about Cambodian-American life--immersive and comic, yet unsparing--offers profound insight into the intimacy of queer & immigrant communities.
If this sounds like something you would like to read, you can get your copy of the book from the store for 15% off when you order with us: in-store, online, over the phone (828.386.1219), or via email. Our booksellers will be happy to help you get the book in the format that you prefer!
Buy Online!
We are open to the public for in-store shopping Mon-Sat from 11am-7pm & you can pickup your orders at the register. However, you can also pickup your book using the pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ and free local delivery, as well (within Boone town limits). Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us!
Finally, you can RSVP & add this event to your personal calendar--do that here! We hope to see you at our next meeting! Reviews & Interviews
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This month's book club selection is Fun Home by Alison Bechdel! We will be meeting on Friday, July 8th at 7:30 pm in an online video chat. You can find the link in the sidebar of this blog (look to the right)!
Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist. Originally best known for the long-running comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, in 2006 she became a best-selling and critically acclaimed author with her graphic memoir Fun Home. Fun Home has also been adapted into a Tony Award-winning musical. Bechdel has been named a MacArthur Fellow and Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont, among many other honors. |
So, what's the book about?
In this graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father.
Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the Fun Home. It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.
Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the Fun Home. It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.
If this sounds like something you would like to read, you can get your copy of the book from the store for 15% off when you order with us: in store, online, over the phone (828.386.1219), or via email. Our booksellers will be happy to help you get the book in the format that you prefer!
Buy Online:
We are open to the public for in-store shopping Mon-Sat from 11am-7pm & you can pickup your orders at the register. However, you can also pickup your book using the pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ and free local delivery, as well (within Boone town limits). Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us!
Finally, you can RSVP & add this event to your personal calendar--do that here! We hope to see you at our next meeting!
Finally, you can RSVP & add this event to your personal calendar--do that here! We hope to see you at our next meeting!
Reviews & Interviews
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - NYT
Mars Reviews Fun Home - The Lesbrary
The Alison Bechdel Interview - The Comics Journal
Mars Reviews Fun Home - The Lesbrary
The Alison Bechdel Interview - The Comics Journal
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This month's book club pick is Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong! We will be meeting in an online video chat on Friday, June 10th at 7:30 pm. You can find the meeting link in the sidebar of the blog (look to the right)!
Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds and the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the 2019 MacArthur Genius Grant, he is also the winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. You can find him on his website. |
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So, what's the book about?
Ocean Vuong's first full-length collection aims straight for the perennial "big"—and very human—subjects of romance, family, memory, grief, war, and melancholia. None of these he allows to overwhelm his spirit or his poems, which demonstrate, through breath and cadence and unrepentant enthrallment, that a gentle palm on a chest can calm the fiercest hungers.
If this sounds like something you would like to read, you can get your copy of the book from the store for 15% off when you order with us: in store, online, over the phone (828.386.1219), or via email. Our booksellers will be happy to help you get the book in the format that you prefer!
Buy Online
We are open to the public for in-store shopping Mon-Sat from 11am-7pm & you can pickup your orders at the register. However, you can also pickup your book using the pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ and free local delivery, as well (within Boone town limits). Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us!
Finally, you can RSVP & add this event to your personal calendar--do that here! We hope to see you at our next meeting!
Finally, you can RSVP & add this event to your personal calendar--do that here! We hope to see you at our next meeting!
Reviews & Interviews
Review: 'Night Sky with Exit Wounds,' Verses from Ocean Vuong - NYT
“Only to Feel This Fully”: Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong - Kenyon Review
Ocean Vuong: Interviewed by Kaveh Akbar - DIVEDAPPER
Ocean Vuong: Poetry, Bodies, and Stillness - The Marginalia Review
“Only to Feel This Fully”: Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong - Kenyon Review
Ocean Vuong: Interviewed by Kaveh Akbar - DIVEDAPPER
Ocean Vuong: Poetry, Bodies, and Stillness - The Marginalia Review
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This month's book club pick is On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong! We will be meeting on Friday, January 14th at 7:30 pm in an online video chat. You can RSVP and get the linkhere.
Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds and the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the 2019 MacArthur Genius Grant, he is also the winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. You can find him on his website. |
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So, what's the book about?
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.
With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.
With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.
If this sounds like something you would like to read, you can get your copy of the book from the store for 15% off when you order with us: in store, online, over the phone (828.386.1219), or via email. Our booksellers will be happy to help you get the book in the format that you prefer!
Buy Online
We are open to the public again (Mon-Sat from 11am-7pm) so you can pickup orders at the register. However, you can also pickup your book using our pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ and free local delivery (within Boone town limits). Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us!
Finally, you can RSVP on the Facebook event to get reminders & updates about any changes to the event! Do that here! You can also add it to your personal calendar - check out the event page to see our Google event calendar where you can RSVP!
Finally, you can RSVP on the Facebook event to get reminders & updates about any changes to the event! Do that here! You can also add it to your personal calendar - check out the event page to see our Google event calendar where you can RSVP!
Reviews & Interviews
On Earth is Gorgeous All the Way Through - NPR
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Review - The Guardian
Survival as a Creative Force: An Interview with Ocean Vuong - The Paris Review
Ocean Vuong on reading, life during the pandemic, and xenophobia - The Seattle Times
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Review - The Guardian
Survival as a Creative Force: An Interview with Ocean Vuong - The Paris Review
Ocean Vuong on reading, life during the pandemic, and xenophobia - The Seattle Times
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This month's pick for book club will be The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass. We will be meeting on Friday, October 8th at 7:30 pm in an online video chat! You can RSVP and get the link here.
Ryan Douglass is an author, poet, and freelance writer from Atlanta, Georgia. His work on race, literacy, sexuality, and media representation has appeared in The Huffington Post, Atlanta Black Star, Everyday Feminism, Nerdy POC, Age of Awareness, LGBTQNation, and Medium, among others. You can find him on twitter at @ryandouglassw. |
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So, what's the book about?
Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can't decide what's worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments on a loop or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare he wishes he could wake up from. But things at St. Clair start looking up with the arrival of another Black student--the handsome Allister--and for the first time, romance is on the horizon for Jake.
Unfortunately, life as a medium is getting worse. Though most ghosts are harmless and Jake is always happy to help them move on to the next place, Sawyer Doon wants much more from Jake. In life, Sawyer was a troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school before taking his own life. Now he's a powerful, vengeful ghost and he has plans for Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about dead world goes out the window as Sawyer begins to haunt him. High school soon becomes a different kind of survival game--one Jake is not sure he can win.
While this is a YA pick, there are some trigger warnings we would like you to be aware of: abuse, attempted rape of a minor, blood, bullying, gore, gun violence, homophobia, microaggressions, murder, racism, school shooting, and suicide. Not all of these are graphic or discussed in depth, but they are touched on throughout the book.
Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can't decide what's worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments on a loop or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare he wishes he could wake up from. But things at St. Clair start looking up with the arrival of another Black student--the handsome Allister--and for the first time, romance is on the horizon for Jake.
Unfortunately, life as a medium is getting worse. Though most ghosts are harmless and Jake is always happy to help them move on to the next place, Sawyer Doon wants much more from Jake. In life, Sawyer was a troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school before taking his own life. Now he's a powerful, vengeful ghost and he has plans for Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about dead world goes out the window as Sawyer begins to haunt him. High school soon becomes a different kind of survival game--one Jake is not sure he can win.
While this is a YA pick, there are some trigger warnings we would like you to be aware of: abuse, attempted rape of a minor, blood, bullying, gore, gun violence, homophobia, microaggressions, murder, racism, school shooting, and suicide. Not all of these are graphic or discussed in depth, but they are touched on throughout the book.
If this sounds like something you would like to read, you can get your copy of the book from the store for 15% off when you order with us: online, over the phone (828.386.1219), or via email. If you're looking for an audiobook, our partners at Libro.fm have it available for easy access on our affiliate website. You can get it here. You can also get it in e-book format, as well! We have a new e-book partner called My Must Reads & you can buy the e-book here.
We are open to the public (Mon-Sat from 11am-7pm) so you can pickup orders at the register. However, you can also pickup your book using our pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window anytime Mon-Sat from 9am-7pm. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ & local delivery if you're within Boone town limits. Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us! Please let us know how we can help you get your copy of our book club book this month!
Finally, you can RSVP on the Facebook event to get reminders & updates about any changes. Do that here! We encourage you to leave comments to let us know what you think of the book we've chosen each month or to make suggestions for future titles!
We are open to the public (Mon-Sat from 11am-7pm) so you can pickup orders at the register. However, you can also pickup your book using our pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window anytime Mon-Sat from 9am-7pm. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ & local delivery if you're within Boone town limits. Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us! Please let us know how we can help you get your copy of our book club book this month!
Finally, you can RSVP on the Facebook event to get reminders & updates about any changes. Do that here! We encourage you to leave comments to let us know what you think of the book we've chosen each month or to make suggestions for future titles!
Reviews & Interviews
The Taking of Jake Livingston - Kirkus
Ryan Douglass evokes 'Get Out' in his horror debut - The Young Folks
Our Friend is Here! A Discussion with Ryan Douglass - On Why We Need Radical YA Books - The Quiet Pond
Interview with author Ryan Douglass - WOC Read
Ryan Douglass evokes 'Get Out' in his horror debut - The Young Folks
Our Friend is Here! A Discussion with Ryan Douglass - On Why We Need Radical YA Books - The Quiet Pond
Interview with author Ryan Douglass - WOC Read
We hope to see you for the second meeting of Pride Among the Pines on October 8th at 7:30 pm! Happy reading!
Authors
Max Ruthless (they/them) -- Store Owner
Event Link
Join us on Google Meet to chat each month:
meet.google.com/mrx-dhpz-wjq
meet.google.com/mrx-dhpz-wjq
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