✨The 100th Grapevine✨
🥂February 12th, 2023 - The One With All The Celebrating 🥳
Hello and happy Sunday, and happy 100th Grapevine!
It wouldn’t be a proper celebration without a throwback to that first edition, two years ago, so here it is, in its original location. Later, I moved it to Substack:
If you’re new here, you might want to check out Dana’s Book Club on Instagram.
It started from the need to have conversations about books in between the book club sessions. Because talking about books cannot be a once-a-month activity. We rarely feel time going by when we get together, and I don’t remember the last time we had a book club session that was shorter than 2-3 hours.
Sometimes I say that to people and they say they can’t imagine having so much to say about a book. And yet, I always feel we leave things unfinished, every time we close off a book club session.
This is how the Grapevine came to be: continuing the never-ending conversations we open about books, authors, stories and characters.
That and this passion of ours to read about fictitious worlds where made-up characters are going on imaginary adventures.
If you’re here, you already know how good that feels, you don’t need to be convinced to pick up and stare at marked slices of tree for hours on end, hallucinating vividly, as reading has been defined on Twitter.
And yet, if you are not aware of the benefits of reading, I recommend this Ted Talk from Cluj. Spoiler alert: it’s not just good for you, but it’s good humanity as a whole!
What Dana has been reading
Sea of Tranquility - Emily St John Mandel
I’ve had this book in my sights for a while now. It’s the 2022 Sci-Fi Goodreads Choice Awards winner in a year of many great books. I finally got around to reading it, and what an amazing 6 hours the experience was!
Sea of Tranquility follows four main characters from four distinct eras: the early 1900s (1912), a present-day setting (2020), the distant future (2203), and ‘the really distant future’ (2401) as The Independent put it.
The Independent also claims that “in order to truly appreciate Emily St. John Mandel’s new novel, a reader should be familiar with her two previous efforts: the groundbreaking pre-COVID pandemic novel, Station Eleven, and 2020’s The Glass Hotel, which explores of the global financial crisis of 2008(...)”
Just reading this statement makes me glad that this was the first time I tried this author. Call it reader rebellion 😆 or just reverse reverence (I should coin this!) for book reviews that try too hard or make the books feel more elitist than they should. Firstly, I don’t like it when reviews call someone’s book “an effort” as if the final product deserves a nod for the exertion it took, but it’s not deserving of the ‘book’ label (just yet?).
Secondly, I am the first to acknowledge that a writer is uniquely equipped and even obligated to build their own world and, with each book, allow the readers to unveil a new layer of said world (see Stephen King’s Castle Rock). But having thoroughly enjoyed this book in a vacuum (I knew nothing about it beforehand, except for its genre), I fail to see the relevance of the author’s previous works, unless they’re prequels/sequels.
Quick synopsis:
“Sea of Tranquility” explores themes of colonialism, literature, music, and time travel while delving into the complex consequences of the choices the characters make. As their stories intertwine, we garner a fresh perspective on human nature and an ever-changing world is revealed. Through the exploration of the past and present, readers are given an insight into how our decisions can shape our future. An insightful exploration of how our choices have the potential to create a ripple effect, and how our actions can have unforeseen consequences.
A lot has been written on the topic in this genre and, without exaggeration, it’s my favourite Sci-Fi trope, which is why I am highly critical of it if it’s not done convincingly. A quick Google search and it produced a list of the most mentioned novels out there on time travel. A couple of lists I found listed The Time Traveler’s Wife as the number 1 time travel Sci-Fi and because I thoroughly disagree, I can’t post them here.
A quick look at this list and I realise that I am familiar with many of these titles, but I didn’t know they involved time travel. So, look away if you don’t want to know!
As a piece of trivia and something to chuckle about, the author of Sea of Tranquility, Emily St John Mandel found herself in a pickle when she had to update information about her private life on Wikipedia, as she was required to cite at least two independent sources to confirm the veridity of the information.
What Dana has been listening to
I’m Glad My Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy
A shocking title, I know. And yet, like many others, I am sure, it’s what attracted me to read this book to begin with. I’m sucker for good marketing and a catchy title. 🫣
This book has been in my book feed for months now, and I thought I should give the audiobook a chance. Though her face is not unfamiliar, I couldn’t say I am aware of Jennette or her career as an actress in Hollywood. Though, honestly, it doesn’t even matter, because this could be anyone.
I felt for her while listening to her own voice giving a heartbreaking account of her life and struggles with an unstable mother in an abusive environment at home (and in entertainment). A book whose characters you know versions of in real life, in any culture, with simple, matter-of-fact statements about heavy, difficult topics. You can tell there was a lot of therapy and self-reflection involved. The razor-sharp writing kept me going and I found the writing truly beautiful in places. It was also refreshingly funny and I found myself laughing in spite of myself.
If you liked Educated by Tara Westover, you might want to try this one.
13 brilliant and unsettling modern dystopian novels that’ll make you rethink everything
Since we’re on the topic of Sci-Fi novels, here is a well compiled list of 13 dytopian novels to make us question everything we know about life.
What the Book Club is currently reading
We have finally settled on Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee, a complex story set in the Korean-Japanese social and geographical space. This is all I know about it so far and I refuse to read more, until I have gone and read the book myself.
We are discussing “Pachinko” on February 27th.
Happy 100th!! I enjoying seeing The Grapevine in my inbox on Sunday morning. Here to many more 100's.