boxofdelights

I've been grumpy about Tawanda book group lately anyway, over a lot of little annoyances--like, one of the people who never remembers to mute her Zoom is a noisy enough eater that the Speaker View is constantly switching to her face, chewing.

And we used to have an agreement not to pick books before they came out in paperback, especially not if they had a long waitlist at the library. But people have made so many exceptions for the book they really wanted to read this month that the agreement doesn't really exist anymore, and this month we are reading Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult.

I put my name on the waiting list as soon as Sarah announced her pick, but it was >100 holds on 13 copies, so I was sure I wasn't going to get it. But the library has a Here & Now collection of popular new books: you can't put them on hold; if they are on the shelf when you walk into the library, you can have them for a week. So I got a copy, a few days before book group.

We have been meeting in person occasionally, when the weather is good enough for us to eat outside. Sarah decided that we would meet at the pie shop. Which would be fine, but she said, "either in their separate smaller room on the side or outside if the weather is nice." I do not want to eat in a group in their separate smaller room.

Stupidly, I did not say that. I said that I was still stuck in this boot, so I couldn't drive. Karen offered to pick me up. Karen is never careless about masking, and always wants the windows open, so I accepted her offer. I'm going to ask her to back me up about not eating inside.

So I am reading the book. It's about Covid! I do not want to read fiction about Covid! It was hard enough reading The Pull of the Stars, but that was worth it, because Emma Donoghue is brilliant. Jodi Picoult is no Emma Donoghue.