Moonrise Book Club
We’re so excited to get this book club started. It’s open to anyone whether or not you’re a Moonrise client. The format is as follows.
Book Club Format
Each month will consist of two options for reading:
📚A non-fiction. Think memoir, birthy book, or justice oriented.
and we’ll alternate between:
📚A cozy, light hearted fiction. Think cozy fantasy, or contemporary rom-com.
📚And a more “serious” fiction option. Think lit fic, or epic fantasy.
If none of the books sound good, or if you’re a mood reader, just bring whatever book you’re moving through.
Our book club will run a bit like a silent book club. some time for chatting, where you can introduce yourself, tell folks about what you’re reading, and catch up with folks who are maybe reading the same thing you are. Then we’ll have 45-60 minutes of quiet reading and then some more time to wrap up share about any exciting updates with what you just read, being mindful for spoilers and the other folks who are reading what you’re reading.
August’s Book Club Picks
Non-fiction Pick: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
A New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Readers Pick
#1 New York Times Bestseller
A Washington Post and Los Angeles Times Bestseller
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise" (Elizabeth Gilbert).
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings--asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass--offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
Fiction Pick: Circe by Madeline Miller
This #1 New York Times bestseller brilliantly reimagines the life of Circe, formidable sorceress of The Odyssey, as she discovers her own power, forges her identity, and challenges the gods who seek to control her.
"[A] bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story." --The New York Times
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power--the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.
But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.
With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.