January 12th was a cold and rainy evening, but seven TIC members braved the elements – ALL except one came by bike! – and made their way to Donna’s home to discuss our latest book. After getting warm drinks and hovering around a table full of delicious sweet and savory snacks, we made our way to the living room to sit and talk about the book.

When I was searching for the 3 book choices, I could not resist including a “horror” storybook just because it’s already October, which, for some people, means Halloween time!

We had a difficult time deciding on this book because not everyone likes “horror,” but the horror fans showed up, and this book was selected! On the Book Club discussion night, there were 7 members, and as usual, we enjoyed having some snacks and drinks while catching up on our latest activities.

When the Tilburg International Club came into being back in March 2008, the Book Discussion group was created as well. Our first meeting was well attended and our first book was Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami. While members to the group have come and gone, we are still going strong and recently read our 100^th book!

We met to discuss the book, The Liar’s Dictionary, by Eley Williams, a young British professor and writer who grew up in a family immersed in words and dictionaries.

While not everyone enjoyed the book as a whole, it was the consensus that dictionaries must be fluid in nature, as words change in meaning over time. Also, imbedded in the story was the existence of mountweasels, or false words, as well as many metaphors, hyperboles, puns, turns of phrase. 

Everyone really enjoyed the book even though there were some difficult parts to read due to the traumatic events that took place.

However, the main highlight of the evening was that we were able to talk with the author herself because she joined our book club through a video call! She gave us some background on how she got interested in the topic of the haenyeo (women divers) and all the research she did to make the book a reality.

We spent another relaxed evening chatting about the book Hiddensee by Gregory Maquire (and often many other life topics!), with our favourite drink(s) in hand.

“Enchanting, mystical and filled with wonder – the perfect holiday fairytale for grown-ups”  is how People magazine described this month’s book club choice. From the opening of our discussion, it was clear that this is not quite how our TiC readers would describe it.

The Book Club had such a fun gathering to discuss our latest book, The Beekeeper of Aleppo! There were 10 in attendance, with 1 brand new member and 1 potential member, and all enjoyed drinks and snacks while having an interesting, thoughtful discussion of this good, but difficult book.

While not everyone had finished the book – the subject matter made it a tough read at times – all agreed that having a personal glimpse into the lives of a refugee family helped one to understand and sympathize with their plight.

It was my turn to make the book selection and when we were discussing about what would be nice to read, the conclusion was that 3 suspense/mystery books will be a nice shift. Then, when I was looking for the options, I also remembered that they wanted to read something “different”, “not too American” (because they have read a lot of those), so I decided to include an “extra” book that was popular in my country (México).

“He can’t leave. You won’t want to.” It’s the back of the book blurb from Amor Towles’ bestseller A Gentleman in Moscow, our pick for the September tíc book club. We met to discuss the novel and it was great
to see each other in person again! We met consistently on Zoom through Covid-19, which helped us all stay in touch.