Reading in a coffee shop

Let’s gather on a sunny Saturday morning, taste some rich coffee and yummy pastries and talk about this historical and somewhat fictionalized account surrounding Ruth and Elliott Handler, the creators of Mattel's Barbie. A well-written and interesting take on the birth of an icon.

In 1956, the only dolls on the market for little girls let them pretend to be mothers. Ruth’s vision for a doll shaped like a grown woman and outfitted in an enviable wardrobe will let them dream they can be anything.

In the decades to come—through soaring heights and devastating personal lows, public scandals and private tensions— each of them will have to decide how tightly to hold on to their creation. Because Barbie has never been just a doll—she’s a legacy.

Let’s gather on a sunny Saturday morning, taste some rich coffee and yummy pastries and talk about this literary science-fiction . . . A wonder . . . as tender and intimate as it is conceptually courageous. This is a novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life on our Earth and in our universe.

The book follows Adina, who is sent by aliens before birth to find out if they could live on earth and reports to them via a fax machine. The book starts with Adina's birth, which takes place in 1977 when Voyager 1 was launched.