Books with Friends Ventura

Visit local independents: Timbre in Ventura and Bart’s Books in Ojai!

Meet at Singing Sun Coffee steps away from our local independent bookshop, Timbre Books in Midtown & bring our drinks to browse Timbre…

Then it’s on to the largest outdoor bookstore in the world in Ojai, featured in Sunset, Vogue, The Los Angeles Times! Personally, I have yet to visit it and am excited to check it out. Possible lunch in Ojai. Timbre opens on a Sunday at 11 am.

https://timbrebooks.com

https://bartsbooksojai.com

Read The Lion Women of Tehran!

Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Readers' Favorite Historical Fiction (2024)
NATIONAL BESTSELLER

An “evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism” (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran—from nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions of becoming “lion women.”

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

“Reminiscent of The Kite Runner and My Brilliant Friend, The Lion Women of Tehran is a mesmerizing tale” (BookPage) of love and courage, and a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young.

Other historical fiction titles that may be of interest to our members:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Sarah’s Key
The Paris Architect
The Paris Library
Diamond Eye

I’ve heard nothing but great things about the book & it’s also an Audible book of the year…and now a movie… with Ryan Gosling :o
It is almost too much. Thought we might gather to discuss it in prep for the movie?

This is the 1st sunday after the march 20th release! Bring your friends and family and join us for a coffee and a fun discussion of the movie before we all walk down to the theater to check it out. Time may be adjusted once we know the showing times.

Goodreads Choice AwardWinner for Readers' Favorite Science Fiction (2021)
A LONE ASTRONAUT.
AN IMPOSSIBLE MISSION.
AN ALLY HE NEVER IMAGINED.

RYLAND GRACE is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and Earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?

An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could imagine it, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54493401-project-hail-mary

Joint event with this cool group of women Democrats for coffee, pancakes, and a great discussion of one of these 3 (you choose) or all! Just join us.

Check out Women Democrats of Ventura County Social Meetup Group on Meetup https://meetup.com/women-democrats-of-ventura-county-social-meetup-group?member_id=362010599

These 3 were one president’s favorites. Can you guess which one?

Choose Your Adventure (remember those good books?) or read all 3 ~ up to you!

Just come & have brunch with us & share…

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Goodreads Choice AwardWinner for Readers' Favorite Science Fiction (2024), Nominee for Readers' Favorite Debut Novel (2024)
A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.
one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of summer 2024
Hugo award finalist for best novel
“Imagine if The Time Traveler’s Wife had an affair with A Gentleman in Moscow…” ~ The Washington Post

The Power by Naomi Alderman
Praised as our era’s Handmaid’s Tale
In The Power the world is a recognizable place: There's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; and a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power: They can cause agonizing pain and even death. With this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.

The Anthropologists
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195391751-the-anthropologists

Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? Can they create their own traditions and rituals? Whom can they consider family?

As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, spends her days gathering footage from the neighborhood park like an anthropologist observing local customs. “Forget about daily life,” chides her grandmother on the phone. “We named you for a whole continent and you're filming a park.” Life back in Asya and Manu's respective home countries continues-parents age, grandparents get sick, nieces and nephews grow up-all just slightly beyond their reach. But the world they're making in their new city is growing, too, they hope, into something that will be distinctly theirs. As they open up the horizons of their lives, what and whom will they hold onto, and what will they need to release?

Hailed by Lauren Groff and Marina Abramovic, Savas's fine, precise craft turns The Anthropologist's simple apartment search into a soulful, often funny, examination of modern coupledom, home-building, and expat life in the universal modern city.

Answer: It was President Obama!