Not regretting doesn’t come easy for Miranda. It requires constant effort: She “whispers ‘I repent nothing’ into the mirrors of a hundred hotel rooms from London to Singapore” (p. 107).
Last but not least…
I think Clark pulls it all together. He has a link to the past as curator of the Museum, is fully engaged in the present as a respected elder of Severn City, and hints at the future as he points toward the little city of lights.
Ship imagery is threaded throughout the book, so I thought it fitting to end on that note.
After the play, Jeevan boards a streetcar “that floated like a ship out of the night” (p. 16). On the beach, Miranda describes the lit-up ships in the distance as a "blaze of light on the horizon both filled with mystery and impossibly distant, a fairy-tale kingdom” (p. 29). Kirsten tries to remember her childhood, and imagines watching Star Trek’s “ship moving through the night silence of space” (p. 120).
As Miranda dies, she thinks about the ship she sees on the horizon:
Years later, thinking of Miranda, Clark picks up the thought where she left off:
^Your ship examples are a good compendium of the of some of the more moving passages in the book, Mary13.
Station Eleven is definitely poignant, if not to say sentimental. Easy to see why it is so popular.
We can start thinking about our next book at any time!
(CBBBlinker, we didn’t hear from you, but I hope you were at least able to follow our Station Eleven discussion as a lurker while you were on your trip!)
I have three books to suggest. All of them are probably going to be outliers, but I’ll throw them in anyway.
The first two books are classics: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. (It’s been a while since we have read a classic.)
North and South is not about the American Civil War, as I first thought. 
It is about a woman in Victorian England. My other book club will be doing it as a group read in March, and I will be joining in. It would be great to discuss the book here also! For those who like film tie-ins, there is a 2004 miniseries based on the book.
My other book group is doing The Age of Innocence as a side read in April. I’m not sure whether I will be joining in, but if I could convince you guys to read it, I definitely will be.
The third book I’d like to suggest is nonfiction. I think it may become a bestseller. The title is H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald. The book won Britain’s 2014 Costa Award, and it has all sorts of rave reviews on Goodreads. I think it sounds great and I really want to read it.
The only problem with H is for Hawk is that it will not be released in the US until March 1. Goodreads is offering twenty copies in a giveaway which ends Feb 28. I’ve entered the giveaway, but there are nearly seven hundred other applicants, so it would be a miracle if I received the book!
NJTM, North and South is one of my favorite books of all time. I can’t even explain why. I guess I just happened to pick it up at the right moment in my life. It’s not always an easy read and I was never able to sell any of my kids on it, but I always return to it when I’m in the mood for a “comfort book.” I would read it again with pleasure (practically have it memorized)–but I don’t know the level of appeal it will have for others. If not for the mini-series (which is great), it would probably still be collecting dust on a lot of library shelves. Elizabeth Gaskell has never been promoted like Dickens or the Brontes, although she should be!
^ the bbc series was excellent.
And, I expected it to be about the civil war,lol.
Mary13, people in my other book group made comments such as yours. North and South seems to be a much-loved book; I’m surprised that I did not know of it! I am looking forward to reading it. It would be terrific if the smart and diligent members here would want to try it.
I’d be up for reading *North and South *. I loved *Age of Innocence * when I read it in high school - and enjoyed the movie, but the movie didn’t actually get me to reread the book.
I can’t think of any suggestions at the moment.
- *A Spool of Blue Thread* - Anne Tyler Published this Feb. so brand new
- *My Brilliant Friend* - see our Best Books thread posts #2827 and #2745
I've been curious about this series since My Brilliant Friend published - A fantasy - I'll let someone else throw out the title.
(I just started *The Goblin Emperor* which **TempeMom** - I think - mentioned on the Best Books thread.)
For those new to our discussions or just lurking, we throw out titles and see what sticks. Hopefully you can add on - something you’ve read or want to read. The more titles, the more fun watching Mary sort it all out. Six titles (actually 5 since my #3 has no title yet) - so far - is not nearly enough.
Hesitant about H is for Hawk but fine with other suggestions.
Off to the dentist to replace a filling. Hope you guys have a better morning than I will.
Oh, I’m always willing to read Anne Tyler! I’ll read it sooner or later whether or not the book club tackles it. I’ve been a fan of her since I was in college when a bunch of middle aged women in a writing group recommended her to me.
Oh, I do actually have a suggestion Penelope Lively’s *Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time *One of the other few non-fantasy non-sci-fi authors for whom I read every single book that is published. I still haven’t read her most recent. It’s not a novel, and not quite a memoir either. Here’s the link to her website: http://www.penelopelively.net/
I love this part of the discussion for all of your ideas! I haven’t read North and South so I’d be up for this. I read The Age of Innocence long ago–great book! I have a never-read my copy of Wharton’s Summer , though, and I’d put that ahead of a Wharton re-read. I have My Brilliant Friendchecked out of the library, again, still unopened though. I would like to read it, some day. Anne Tyler’s latest is on my library request list. Btw, she was featured in a great NPR interview today, on the Diane Rehm show.
Other suggestions:
- * The Prodigal Women * by Nancy Hale. This is an oldie (1942) I picked up at a book sale, the story of three girls growing up in Massachusetts in the 1930/40's.
- * Orfeo* by Richard Powers. From the Booklist review:
[quote]
Retired composer Peter Els has an unusual hobby, do-it-yourself genetic engineering. Is his work dangerous? We’re not sure, but when hazmat-suited government agents descend on his home, he flees, becoming perhaps the world’s least likely suspected terrorist, the “biohacker Bach.” On his prolonged cross-country journey, we learn Els’ life story in flashback: how he fell in love with music and with a woman, went to school at the height of the avant garde, and began a lifelong struggle between the urge to invent and the need to please. World events, from JFK’s assassination to 9/11 to H5N1, provide a kind of tragic meter.
[/quote]
. - *Lady Chatterley's Lover* by D. H. Lawrence. I know, I'm going out on a limb with this classic because of its risque reputation. However, it's in my used, unread classic paperback collection, and with that other book about to be a major movie, with whose title I need not sully this page, I thought it might be thought provoking to read Lawrence's scandalous masterpiece from the 1920's. .
I like Anne Tyler; she’s a good writer. However, a lot of her books follow the “troubled person saved by a quirky person” formula, to the extent that I’ll think, “Wait, did I read this one before?”
A Spool of Blue Thread sounds like it might not adhere to that formula, but even if it does, I always enjoy the humor and insightfulness of Tyler’s books.
mathmom’s suggestion, Ammonites and Leaping Fish is an interesting-sounding memoir. (Penelope Lively grew up in Egypt!) I love memoirs. I’m not sure whether this group has ever read one.
^I’m ashamed to admit it’s the only one of his books I have read!
Well, I notice I have “a complete reprint of the Authorized American Edition”, published by Signet (7th printing), 1953, so my sensibilities will certainly be protected when I do read it, lol. According to Wiki, a “heavily censored abridgment” was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1928, and reissued posthumously in my Signet edition. Penguin Books was tried in 1960 after reissuing the real deal, which is packed with obscenities. Again, from Wikipedia:
Now that I know this, I may have to look for the original, which is doubtless the only version reissued these days.
^Haha, I only once “looked at the dirty parts” many, many years ago.
(Edit: I don’t know what edition I looked at. Is there a dirtier one?? LOL!) Lady Chatterley’s Lover would probably be an interesting read that I would not be averse to.
You always have such intriguing suggestions, PlantMom. I’ve never read any Richard Powers. Unfortunately, I looked at various descriptions of “Orfeo” and thought, “Um, nope.” 
More power (pun not intended) to you if you can read a novel like that. I don’t think I am enough of an intellectual!
Here are a couple of comments on Powers and Orfeo from a New York Times review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/books/review/orfeo-by-richard-powers.html?_r=0
I’ll suggest one I think has been mentioned in the past, The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani.
I’ll add one to the mix for now or later - The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacobs. If anyone chooses to read it, the audiobook is particularly good because the author reads it so she nails the accents and inflections.
^^^ I started to add that title.
Caraid: I read Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani. I liked it and always meant to read another by her.
PlantMom: Summer by Edith Wharton happens to be on my daughter’s list of books she hates. She had to read it the summer before she started ninth grade Honors English. At some point the girl’s red hat blows off and the next thing you know the girl’s pregnant. As my daughter says: who knew? 
(It could just be that she did not like her freshman English teacher. Still it always makes us laugh when she rants about Summer - and, yes, she still does.)