GIRL DINNER: Friendsgiving!

Join us for GIRL DINNER: Friendsgiving edition! Let’s all bring something to share while we chat about our featured books!

Definition:
Girl Dinner - A light meal consisting of pre-made snacks and/or easy-to-prepare foods that satisfies ephemeral cravings while also allowing the diner to reject the confines and strictures of patriarchal dinner tables and actualize a spread that mimics an offering to Gaia. Usually involves some kind of charcuterie and/or fermented snack.

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For this installment, we're going to ring in the holiday season together by throwing a Friendsgiving here in the bookstore! We have three short books to choose from, so no pressure to read/finish all three! This month, we're featuring: Devils in Daylight by Junichiro Tanizaki (translated by J. Keith Vincent), Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls, and 84, Charring Cross Road by Helene Hanff. Your ticket gets you one of these books + a drink, with the option to purchase the other books at our meeting. Books available night-of or for in-store pick up ahead of time.

We’ll gather for lively conversation about connection, romance, suspense, food, our favorite and least favorite tropes, and anything else that comes up! Expect smart takes, big laughs, and a room full of snacking queens.

About the books:

Option #1: Devils in Daylight:

Bug and now knows exactly when and where a murder will take place—and they must hurry if they want to witness the murder, because it’s later that very night! Sonomura has a history of lunacy and playing the amateur detective, so Takahashi is of course reluctant to believe him. Nevertheless, they stake out the secret location, and through tiny peepholes in the knotted wood, become voyeurs at the scene of a shocking crime…

Option #2: Mrs. Caliban:

In the quiet suburbs, while Dorothy is doing chores and waiting for her husband to come home from work, not in the least anticipating romance, she hears a strange radio announcement about a monster who has just escaped from the Institute for Oceanographic Research… Reviewers have compared Rachel Ingalls’s Mrs. Caliban to King Kong, Edgar Allan Poe’s stories, the films of David Lynch, Beauty and the Beast, The Wizard of Oz, E.T., Richard Yates’s domestic realism, B-horror movies, and the fairy tales of Angela Carter—how such a short novel could contain all of these disparate elements is a testament to its startling and singular charm.

Option #3: 84, Charring Cross Road:

This funny, poignant, classic love story unfolds through a series of letters between Helene Hanff, a freelance writer living in New York City, and a used-book dealer in London at 84, Charing Cross Road. Through the years, though never meeting and separated both geographically and culturally, they share a charming, sentimental friendship based on their common love for books. Discover the relationship that has touched the hearts of thousands of readers around the world, and was the basis for a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft.

Want an expertly crafted smörgåsbord? Check out these local faves and pick it up to go!

1. EVO
2. Accent on Wine
3. Jackrabbit Filly
4. Stems & Skins