“Jeeves, I said, “stand by to consel and advise. The plot has thickened.” “I looked at Jeeves. He looked at me. I did not speak, save with the language of the eyes, but his trained senses enabled him to read my thoughts unerringly.” “Bertie,” said Aunt Dahlia, “I am a weak woman, but if you…
Author: Meripoint Books
How to Get Unstuck Again and Again and Again
This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (Riverhead Books) This month’s book presents us with a character, Alice, about to turn 40. She is a modern New Yorker, single and independent. She has good friends, a steady job, and an apartment within walking distance to her job. Her life is clearly the result of the decisions…
Absent in the Spring
“And now, just a special word. No lazy thinking, Joan, my dear! Don’t just accept things at their face value—because it is the easiest way, and because it may save you pain! Life is meant to be lived, not glossed over. And don’t be too pleased with yourself!” My favorite sentence: “And suddenly,…
Innovative Memoirs
How Does One Write About One’s Life? Whenever I meet two people in love, I typically ask them: How did you meet? It’s incredible the many different ways there are to meet a future significant other. For instance, my darling and I met outside just before a dramatic lightning storm. Who would have guessed? But…
Small Things Like These
“Before going back into the house, he’d washed his face at the horse-trough, breaking the ice on the surface, pushing his hands down deep in the cold and keeping them there, to divert his pain, until he could no longer feel it.” Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan Chilling Times Note to self: if…
Good Night Avant-garde, Sleep Well
Good Morning Innovative Lit! Innovative Literature. What does this mean? Something new, something that pushes the boundaries of what we consider literature? Yes. We used to say avant-garde when referring to trailblazing artists. It was a glamorous term, evoking twentieth-century images of highly intelligent, misunderstood yet beautiful people alone in their convictions, together…
The New Frontier of AI
Writers, Behold! Generative AI has exploded upon the writing scene. We can’t ignore it. I remember clearly the moment the large language model known as ChatGPT (Chattie in our household) entered my life. My twenty-something daughter was wandering around the family room carrying her open laptop. She meandered over to me and said, “Hey Mom!…
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
“It suddenly struck me the other day that it might be possible to be an adult all the time.” Every once in a while, a book club should read a classic dystopian novel. Planetary Motto: Community, Identity, Stability Have you ever wondered what a rational, engineered civilization would look like? One that prioritizes the…
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
“Shredding and slicing, dividing and subdividing, the clocks of Harley Street nibbled at the June day…” Last weekend, I finished reading Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, our book selection for October. At first glance and after a few pages, the narrative style seemed impenetrable. I found the sentences ponderous and meandering. I struggled, annotating the…