The Essex Serpent is okay with me. I was hoping to get out of Europe but never mind :).
Leaning toward The Essex Serpent. We’ve always had really good discussions about books set in the Victorian era. 
Let’s go with The Essex Serpent. I like the description and am encouraged by the excellent reviews and the number of awards it has received.
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley will stay on my to-read list, but as it happens, I’m about to read News of the World, which will probably meet my immediate need for a morally complex tale involving guns, travel, a man scarred by his past, and a father-daughter relationship.
Thank you @SouthJerseyChessMom for posting all the descriptions. That helped a lot.
I enjoyed our discussion of A Gentleman in Moscow. It moved at a more leisurely pace than some of our previous selections, but I think that’s due in part to the timing. We’ve all been so busy with our real lives! However, that’s the advantage of an online discussion. We can take it fast or slow, and start at the beginning or jump in somewhere in the middle.
I’ll start a new thread for The Essex Serpent. Savor the rest of the summer, and for those of you in the right part of the country, enjoy the eclipse on the 21st! But don’t stare directly into the sun. [-X
@Mary13 I would definitely read Essex Serpent.
Best wishes to @CBBBlinker! for a lovely wedding day for her daughter and future son-in-law and an equally lovely trip to Italy.
@Mary13: Gulf Coast Reads chose News of the World as its 2017 book: http://www.gulfcoastreads.org. Both my real life (though I think of the CC book club as real life too) book clubs will be reading it - one in September and the other in October. Speaking/discussion events will take place through Oct. Anyway, I’m looking forward to reading it also.
So what are you guys reading at the moment: I’m not reading much right now but had previously started *The Goldfinch/i and Neal Stephenson’s latest The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. I’ll get back to both eventually. I am rereading Sarah Addison Allen’s books - easy, comfort reads for me - and should finish Lost Lake soon.
@mathmom - Good for you for finishing A Suitable Boy.
Looking forward to reading The Essex Serpent. I WILL make time for the CC Book Club.
As always, my sincere gratitude to @Mary13 who makes it work.
I am rereading Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War books so I can read the new one in the series.
There’s a new John Scalzi sci fi that I will probably squeeze in before it needs to be returned to the library.
Pleased to see that Lois McMasters Bujold just won the Hugo for best series for the Vorkosigan books.
I actually really liked A Suitable Boy, despite taking so long to read it. I found one of the main characters rather tiresome, and I kept putting it down for other stuff, but it always called me back. Curious as to whether the author will manage to write the followup book or not.
Congrats to you, CCBlinker!
Looking forward to The Essex Serpent - I like books with a mystical/mythical edge.
Thanks for another great discussion, Mary and company! Enjoy the rest of the summer!!
I hope to join you for this discussion. The selection, The Essex Serpent, looks great!
^ Yay! We missed you @PlantMom.
I’m currently slogging through “The Sympathizer.” It had been on the list for my “Books on the Beach” group. I never got to the meeting 3 weeks ago where they discussed it, but I rarely start a book and don’t finish it. It may be a Pulitzer Prize winner, but I’m not enjoying it.
My main RL Book Club is reading “A Tale of Love and Darkness” for September. (We usually choose long books for September since we don’t meet in July & August; this one is 560 pages.) I haven’t started it and somehow think I may not get it done due to the wedding. At this point some quick read mysteries would suit me better …
@CBBBlinker, under the circumstances, maybe just this once you could cheat and watch the movie instead 
: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1135989/
Readjng “isaacs Storm” Erik Larsen - as if there aren’t enough catastrophic things in today’s world reading about 1900 hurricane in Galveston Texas.
Enjoyable escapism reading
“A Year of Saying Yes” Sondra Rhimes ( who just signed a mega deal with Netflix)
“A city bakers guide to Country Life " sweet little book, Vermont, food, wholesomeness”
“Living Horizontally” Chelsea Handler - not wholesome although I love her politics and Netflix show- often cringeworthy, and so is this book - you’ve been warned"
“Sea glass” Anita Shreve- skimmed this one - beach read
"Plan B " Ann Lamont - like her politics too
Sorry I wasn’t around much. Just got back from a trip where I had so-so internet and only my phone. The Essex Serpent looks great. Thanks.
I’ve been absent from the discussion of A Gentleman in Moscow because my hold at the library didn’t arrive until about a week ago. I rushed through it so I could join the discussion but have obviously missed the main part!!
Just two thoughts:
I did not think that Mishka committed suicide. The last time that Alexander saw him, he had lost 30 pounds, had sustained some sort of injury to his leg, and looked like a homeless person. I assumed he died from hunger or some sort of terrible disease.
This may be a silly question, but I’ve never let that stop me: How were the Count’s expenses at the Metropol paid for? He ate and drank every night like the Count he was, and he had his weekly trim at the barber and so forth. Did the State, out of the goodness of their heart, pay for him to stay there? Did his family fortune (which of course had been confiscated) fund it all? Did he stay there for free? If so, why did the hotel continue to treat him so well?
It may be a detail but I was curious during the entire book.
I really enjoyed the book. The language, the insights into people, the humor, Alexander’s patience – I really liked it all.
@VeryHappy, I wondered the same thing. After 1926, I figured the Count earned his keep through his restaurant work at the Boyarsky. But what about from 1922-1926? Even the kindest hotel staff might feel a little resentful of the Count’s free room and board for so many years (and we’re talking about gourmet meals and fancy wine, not bread and water).
And a related question: The Count had a lot of gold stashed away in the four hollow legs of his desk. To my knowledge he didn’t spend this (I assume because it would have raised suspicion). When he escaped, he gave a few pieces away to his friends, but not the full supply. What happened to it? Does it remain in the desk legs for eternity?
That’s a very good question. Well, he wouldn’t have been so foolish to leave it in the desk for eternity. That would be wasteful and silly. Why would he do that when he had so many people he could have given it to? He gave “only” four coins to each of his friends. Did he take the rest with him, for his future with Anna??
Maybe…I hope so…but think how weighed down he would be! I feel like when he exited the Metropol, he would have wanted to be traveling as lightly as possible.
Yes, but he was also a pragmatist. He must have taken some of it! That’s what I’d like to think, anyway.
The Count gave the remaining coins (or a goodly portion) to Sofia - didn’t he? (p. 443-444) I’d bet he took more that a couple with him also.
And I assumed that the Count lived on money he got in exchange for gold coins - as needed. (p. 24-25)
@ignatius, thanks! It’s amazing how much I can miss (or forget) in a book that I thought I read closely.
Re the financial arrangement with Konstantin Konstantinovich, my excuse is that it happened so early in the book, I hadn’t yet even asked myself the question that their conversation answered. But I feel like I still need to embrace some suspension of disbelief: Wouldn’t the Count’s endless supply of money have had the bad guys sniffing around him after a while?
As for Sofia on p. 443-444, it’s amazing that 8 stacks of gold coins could be hidden inside a hollowed-out book, even one as fat as Montaigne’s Essays!