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Ship of Fools Book Club 2026

CaissaCaissa Shipmate
in Heaven
The time has come to speak of many things...

Once again this year, would it be possible to get 12 volunteers (1 for each month) to agree to facilitate a discussion? The volunteer would get to choose a book (keeping in mind availability). If we could have a complete schedule in place by the end of this year people could plan for acquiring copies for the months in which they want to join in the reading and discussion.

Comments

  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I think I've mentioned this book before, but it is one I really enjoyed this year Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoilecoin. It's about a gay woman whose younger brother is in line for sainthood.
    Another book that might be interesting is The Conjure Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher. Thought to be the first detective novel by a black American author it is set in Harlem and is interesting for all sorts of reasons.
    Most months should be OK but earlier in the year might be better as I'll probably be a bit busy from May onwards.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    If we had individuals and books chosen for January and February that would give us some space to fill in the rest of the year.
  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    I can do The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot if we fancy another sciency one?
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    We are likely to be moving house in the early part of next year so I will have to go for something later and will do my best to get my head round it as time goes on...
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Sandemaniac wrote: »
    I can do The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot if we fancy another sciency one?

    I think we might have read that one for bookclub before, but it would have been quite a few years ago. If not I must have read it at some other time. It was really interesting so I would definitely read it again.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I read the Skloot about ten or twelve years ago and wouldn't mind revisiting.
    I'm happy to do January or February. If no one fancies the Ni Mhaoilecoin or Fisher books I really enjoyed Gabriel's Moon by William Boyd recently. A book a bit in the Le Carre vein about an accidental spy. A lot of it is set in 1960s London which I found interesting.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    If people would like to read a memoir I could lead 'Crying in H Mart' by Michelle Zauner, a US singer with a Korean mother and white American father. The memoir charts her relationship with her mother especially during her mother's treatment for cancer, her career progression and maintaining links to her Korean culture once her close Korean relatives have passed away.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Sarasa wrote: »
    I think I've mentioned this book before, but it is one I really enjoyed this year Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoilecoin. It's about a gay woman whose younger brother is in line for sainthood.
    Another book that might be interesting is The Conjure Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher. Thought to be the first detective novel by a black American author it is set in Harlem and is interesting for all sorts of reasons.
    Most months should be OK but earlier in the year might be better as I'll probably be a bit busy from May onwards.

    Both these books sound like good choices. 'Gabriel's Moon' sounds interesting too, but the type of book I would need full brain power to follow all the twists and turns.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I am going to type in a template below. If you have a book and month you want to lead, please, copy the template and add book, author and leader beside the month you wish to lead. Subsequent leaders can just copy and add to the most recent schedule.

    January-
    February-
    March-
    April-
    May-
    June-
    July-
    August-
    September-
    October-
    November-
    December-
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    January- Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoilecoin
    February-
    March-
    April-
    May-
    June-
    July-
    August-
    September-
    October-
    November-
    December-

    I'm re-reading Ordinary Saints for a real life book group in January so thought it made sense to double up. If put a link that I think explains the tone of the book well. I found it and engaging read the first time round and one that I think we'd find interesting and thought provoking.


  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    edited December 2025
    I just checked with my bookpusher and it seems Ordinary Saints is only selling in the UK at the moment. It sounds like a fantastic book that I would love to read.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    Drat, we could push it to later in the year and we could go with The Conjure Man Dies instead which I assume is available more widely.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Caissa wrote: »
    I am going to type in a template below. If you have a book and month you want to lead, please, copy the template and add book, author and leader beside the month you wish to lead. Subsequent leaders can just copy and add to the most recent schedule.

    January-
    February-
    March-
    April-
    May- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
    June-
    July-
    August-
    September-
    October-
    November-
    December-

    I'm flexible with months except not June as I will be on holidays
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I have checked on all of the other suggestions and they are available in North American. Do any of the proponents want to volunteer for January and February? I apologize with not being as attentive to this thread as I probably should be. December is always a busy time for Canadian university student services staff, et alone the self-inflicted wound I have of marking for my course.
  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    edited December 2025
    I did offer a title, but I'm thinking now of running with Dark Remedy by Rock Brynner and Trent Stephens.

    Could people outswith the UK check availability, please - if it's easily available elsewhere I could take January and get us started?

    And maybe do Henrietta Lacks in the latter part of the year? If anyone can confirm whether or not it has been a book club read, and how long ago, would be appreciated.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I don't think we've done the Henrietta Lacks book, but if we did it would have been a long time ago @Sandemaniac. Dark Remedy seems easily available in the UK, did you mean the US? It certainly sounds worth reading.

    I've put down The Conjure Man Dies for February. I assume its available in the US as it is an American title.

    January-
    February- The Conjure Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher
    March-
    April-
    May- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
    June-
    July-
    August-
    September-
    October-
    November-
    December-
  • Tree BeeTree Bee Shipmate
    I think we read the Henrietta Lacks book way back when I was steering the group, so it’s certainly long enough ago to include it again.
  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    Sarasa wrote: »
    I don't think we've done the Henrietta Lacks book, but if we did it would have been a long time ago @Sandemaniac. Dark Remedy seems easily available in the UK, did you mean the US? It certainly sounds worth reading.
    Tree Bee wrote: »
    I think we read the Henrietta Lacks book way back when I was steering the group, so it’s certainly long enough ago to include it again.

    @Sarasa, yes, I meant outside the UK.

    I'm happy to take two if you reckon two sciency ones in a year is OK. Probably well apart, to keep the non-science people from getting overwhelmed.

  • MiliMili Shipmate
    It would be interesting to reread the Henrietta Lacks book again in the light of all the new treatments that have been developed since I last read it and ethical concerns in how dna research is conducted.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    My book pusher is able to order The Conjure Man Dies for me. I have her checking re. Dark Remedy by Rock Brynner and Trent Stephens, Sandemaniac.
  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    Thanks for letting me know, @Caissa
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I just ordered it from our national monopoly ;^). My book pusher told me she could not come close to competing on price. Pickup date estimated Jan 9.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I just cracked open Supremacy by Parmy Olson. Quite timely. https://www.amazon.com/Supremacy-ChatGPT-Race-Change-World/dp/1250337747
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate

    January-Dark Remedy by Rock Brynner and Trent Stephens.-Sandemaniac
    February- The Conjure Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher- Sarasa
    March-
    April-
    May- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner-Mili
    June-
    July-
    August-
    September-
    October-
    November-
    December-
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Bump. We have three months picked, 9 to go. Feel free to pencil yourself in.
    January-Dark Remedy by Rock Brynner and Trent Stephens.-Sandemaniac
    February- The Conjure Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher- Sarasa
    March-
    April-
    May- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner-Mili
    June-
    July-
    August-
    September-
    October-
    November-
    December-
  • TrudyTrudy Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Over the last couple of years I have indulged my love of Canadian writer LM Montgomery by leading a discussion on Montgomery's novel The Blue Castle, and honoured Remembrance Day this past year by leading The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers, a novel that is at least as much about the aftermath of WWI as it is about solving a murder.

    If anyone is interested, I would like to combine those two interests in November of this year by leading a discussion on L.M. Montgomery's Rilla of Ingleside, which I think is an amazing and underrated depiction of life on the Canadian home front in the First World War.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    That would be fun!
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I'd very much enjoy that @trudy. I'm a big fan of Rilla of Ingleside and I' love an excuse to read it again.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    January-Dark Remedy by Rock Brynner and Trent Stephens.-Sandemaniac
    February- The Conjure Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher- Sarasa
    March-
    April-
    May- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner-Mili
    June-
    July-
    August-
    September-
    October-
    November- Rilla of Ingleside- L.M. Montgomery-Trudy
    December-
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    The first book I read with the Ship was the Windup Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. Is there any appetite for doing his most recent novel The City and Its Uncertain Walls? It is sitting in my to be read pile.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I'm always a bit ambivalent about Murakami, but if it isn't too long I'm willing to give it a whirl.
    Looking at my bookshelves today I noticed The Feastby Margaret Kennedy. It is a novel about the seven deadly sins set in a run-down seaside hotel just after WWII. It was one of the books I enjoyed most last year, and although it can be read as an allegory it is also an interesting novel about life just after the war. Maybe for August?
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Do any of these books spark interest?

    1) Exiles- Jane Harper
    2) Neuromancer-William Gibson
    3) Supernova Era- Cixin Liu ( currently reading)
    4) Anything by P.D. James ( The first book I rad by her was Shroud for a Nightingale. I became hooked.)
  • MarkDMarkD Shipmate
    edited January 14
    I can recommend Matt Haig's How To Make Time Stop. I'm halfway through this one and thoroughly enjoyed two others by him, The Midnight Library and The Life Impossible. I think of what he writes as belonging in a genre I'd like to call Twi-Fi. Psychological fiction of the sort I first encountered on the early television show The Twilight Zone.

    His writing makes it hard to put a book down. His characters and intriguing and the each one pursues the psychological dimensions of an interesting premise.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Caissa wrote: »
    Do any of these books spark interest?

    1) Exiles- Jane Harper
    2) Neuromancer-William Gibson
    3) Supernova Era- Cixin Liu ( currently reading)
    4) Anything by P.D. James ( The first book I rad by her was Shroud for a Nightingale. I became hooked.)

    I would like to read something by PD James. I haven't read her yet and keep meaning to. I have Innocent Blood in my bookcase. I could lead this in March if other people would like to read it too.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I think that would be wonderful.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    January-Dark Remedy by Rock Brynner and Trent Stephens.-Sandemaniac
    February- The Conjure Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher- Sarasa
    March-Innocent Blood by P.D. James- fineline
    April-
    May- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner-Mili
    June-
    July-
    August-
    September-
    October-
    November- Rilla of Ingleside- L.M. Montgomery-Trudy
    December-
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I second P.D. James. I've read a few but don't mind a re-run. I think we've done How to Stop Time and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. He's written loads off others though.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Do you want to facilitate The Life Impossible, MarkD?
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I found The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard in one of my to-read piles. I would like to facilitate it one month if there is interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Drowned_World
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Are there others feeling there is less enthusiasm for the book club this year?
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    As someone who hasn't spoken up but would like to be involved (maybe even lead), the problem is that Dec./Jan. is jammed with real-life crap. Please don't count me out entirely. I'll get my shit together pretty soon...
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    As I explained, we are working towards a house move and I am not currently sure which way is up :disappointed: . So I hope to join in and lead a discussion, but not until later in the year.
  • TrudyTrudy Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Sarasa wrote: »
    I'm always a bit ambivalent about Murakami, but if it isn't too long I'm willing to give it a whirl.
    Looking at my bookshelves today I noticed The Feastby Margaret Kennedy. It is a novel about the seven deadly sins set in a run-down seaside hotel just after WWII. It was one of the books I enjoyed most last year, and although it can be read as an allegory it is also an interesting novel about life just after the war. Maybe for August?

    Ooh, this sounds like something I'd enjoy!
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