Bangkok Book Club

In Person Meetup

Note: the book club meets following this one are “The End of the Affair” by Graham Greene on Thursday 21August and “The Invention of Wings” by Sue Monk Kidd on Thursday 02 October

• What we'll do

Finish reading, then join us in person, share your insights over a meal and/or drink(s) at Bar Storia del Caffè, The Salil Hotel. It’s on Soi Sukhumvit 57 and is a 5-minute walk from BTS Thonglor station.

Approximately 272 pages. It’s available at Kinokuniya Bookstore for 426 baht (https://thailand.kinokuniya.com/bw/9780008366568), $11.99 on kindle or as an audiobook on audible.com.

Should anyone who RSVP’s need the epub version please send a message to the host.

Synopsis

On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend's phone and makes a startling discovery: he's an anonymous internet conspiracy theorist, and a popular one at that. Already fluent in internet fakery, irony, and outrage, she's not exactly shocked by the revelation. Actually, she's relieved--he was always a little distant--and she plots to end their floundering relationship while on a trip to the Women's March in DC. But this is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world whose truths are shaped by online lies.

Suddenly left with no reason to stay in New York and increasingly alienated from her friends and colleagues, our unnamed narrator flees to Berlin, embarking on her own cycles of manipulation in the deceptive spaces of her daily life, from dating apps to expat meetups, open-plan offices to bureaucratic waiting rooms. She begins to think she can't trust anyone--shouldn't the feeling be mutual?

Narrated with seductive confidence and subversive wit, Fake Accounts challenges the way current conversations about the self and community, delusions and gaslighting, and fiction and reality play out in the internet age.

• Important to know

No entrance fee, no membership fees. Your patronage of the cafe is highly appreciated, as usage of their facility is without charge. Expect meal/drink to average 450 baht thereabouts

In Person Meetup

Note: the book club meet prior to this one is “Fake Accounts” by Lauren Oyler on Thursday 24 July and will be followed by Sue Monk Kidd’s “The Invention of Wings” on Thursday 02 October

• What we'll do

Finish reading, then join us in person, share your insights over a meal and/or drink(s) at Bar Storia del Caffè, The Salil Hotel. It’s on Soi Sukhumvit 57 and is a 5-minute walk from BTS Thonglor station.

Approximately 192 pages. It’s available at Kinokuniya Bookstore for 485 baht (https://thailand.kinokuniya.com/bw/9780099478447), 390 baht on Shopee (1 copy left), $9.02 on kindle or as an audiobook (read by actor Colin Firth) on audible.com.

Should anyone who RSVP’s need the epub version please send a message to the host.

Synopsis

Set in London just after World War II, The End of the Affair follows two characters, Sarah Miles and Maurice Bendrix, navigating life after their adulterous relationship. Having found themselves on divergent paths, Maurice discovers a wedge being driven between them as Sarah’s growing devotion to God bristles against his unwavering love for her. Through their mutual experience of loss, grief, suffering, and ultimately death, the former lovers stumble across the inescapable love of God in the most improbable circumstances.

• Important to know

No entrance fee, no membership fees. Your patronage of the cafe is highly appreciated, as usage of their facility is without charge. Expect meal/drink to average 450 baht thereabouts

In Person Meetup

Note: the book club meets prior to this one are “Fake Accounts” by Lauren Oyler on Thursday 24 July and “The End of the Affair” by Graham Greene on Thursday 21 August.

• What we'll do

Finish reading, then join us in person, share your insights over a meal and/or drink(s) at Bar Storia del Caffè, The Salil Hotel. It’s on Soi Sukhumvit 57 and is a 5-minute walk from BTS Thonglor station.

Approximately 400 pages. It’s available for order from suppliers (around 10
days for dispatch) at Kinokuniya Bookstore for 478 baht (https://thailand.kinokuniya.com/bw/9781472212771?cookie=48fad1b87672812df0b340385d651712&prod=1472212770), 709 baht on Lazada, 223 baht on Shopee (2 copies left), $6.99 on kindle or as an audiobook on audible.com.

Should anyone who RSVP’s be looking for the epub version please send a message to the host.

The Invention of Wings - Sue Monk Kidd.pdf https://share.google/5qkeVVD44YJzgTAAC

Synopsis

This is a novel about two unforgettable American women.

Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.

Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.

Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better.

This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.

• Important to know

No entrance fee, no membership fees. Your patronage of the cafe is highly appreciated, as usage of their facility is without charge. Expect meal/drink to average 450 baht thereaboutsm