All the Book Club plans
Upcoming titles and a swap
As we are long overdue a book club swap I hope you will forgive the slightly long winded update, but I wanted to put it all in one email rather than risk bombarding your inbox.
Book club membership is available to all paid members of the Everyday Knitter community, with a monthly read assigned. We all gather in the informal Chat thread to discuss our thoughts as we go and share updates.
We are also shortly having our first physical book swap to which you are very warmly invited. To join us you just need to scroll down and tap the subscribe button.
First things first - our February read.
We are already part way through the month (blushes) so I thought it might be fun to have a short story as our read for the month. Short stories are often overlooked when we are browsing for books to read but honestly they have so much to offer.
They are really helpful as a reading snack between bigger or more thought-provoking reads, or for getting myself out of a bit of a reading slump when my to-be-read pile looks too daunting.
I have already read Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid (plus the other two in the series) and she writes in such an engaging manner. It’s hard not to be swept up in the whodunnit style of writing - and I’ve have yet to predict the final plot twist in any of her books.
The Housemaid’s Wedding: A Short Story is the perfect introduction to her writing if you are new to it. And if you are already a fan - at only 90 pages long - this is a read you could easily squeeze into your plans for this month.
Join me in the chat thread to let me know what you think.
Upcoming books Mar-May
To assist with a bit of forward planning I thought it might be helpful if I assigned a few months ahead of time, in three-month blocks. This will hopefully allow time for you to order library books, or to source them from your favourite place.
March: The Book of Beginnings by Sally Page
April: Expiration Dates by Rebecca Searle
May: The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow
These have been chosen for purely selfish reasons as they have been on my TBR pile for ages 🤣 But I hope that you will enjoy them and that they will generate some interesting discussions as we work our way through them.
I’ll talk a little bit about each title as we come up to the month but for now do feel free to tap on the links and read a bit more about each one.
Now for the exciting part - Book Swap time
Last year in the paid community here we had a PenPal project - swapping a physical letter with a pal and then towards the end of the year we had a yarn swap which was great fun.
This time I thought it would be lovely to have a book swap.
As before you will be paired up with a swap partner via the Elfster app and you will be able to specify whether you swap with someone in your own country (to reduce postage costs) or not.
The idea is for this to be a cosy swap with us sharing a fiction book that we really loved with our partner.
I’d love for you to chat with your assigned swappee - either via direct message on Substack or via Elfster, whichever is easiest, to get a feel for what their preferred reads are. When you sign up in the Elfster link you could always add a few books from your wish list so that folks can get a sense of your tastes in advance.
You can either gift them a book you already own if it is in good condition or you can buy a book, that’s entirely up to you.
⏰ Timelines
Sign up deadline is 1 March 2025
Postage deadline is: 31 March 2025
What do you think? If you aren’t a paid member but have questions please just reply to this email or send me a DM.
If you are a paid member and keen to join us, just scroll on down to the Elfster link below, sign up and let the swapping fun commence.