Book Club

She’s a therapist by profession,( well, retired now), but she
is  equally a good cook and interior designer—— Our hostess for bookclub today made some wonderful soup and kept all her lovely Christmas decorations up..she says they will be up past the inauguration because they are cheerful.   I could not resist these snowmen making  “smores” and this reindeer.    The book we read was NOT so cheerful .  A novel that has gained many awards including the National Book award since it came out in 2016,  it reads almost like a slave narrative in its descriptions of the horrible atrocities associated with slavery and the somewhat magical realism of the underground railroad of the abolitionists helping the Blacks  (here it is actually a train in a tunnel!) and the different experiences in the different states as the freed or runaways go north.  Descriptions of the “slave catchers” I’m afraid sound all too present-day!   Eerily and distressingly so,.  I have not read Colson Whitehead before I'm sorry to say but now I want to read a few others —apparently all very different. Some of our group had seen him in Seattle and could testify personally about his charisma, intelligence and humor.   Well worth reading, in my opinion.  
And a lively catch up and discussion with good friends made for a good day!  Now I'm going to go watch our dear dear President give his last speech...