The People of the Books were polarised on this one, as we often are. Still, as always, our group provides lots of insights, knowledge, and humour. It’s a pleasure spending two hours with these folks every month. Next up: Margaret Atwood.
I attended a docent continuing education session with Mr Skywatcher himself, Bill Selby. He started by asking: ‘When you’re taking the public on a walk, how much time do you spend observing the sky?” Mmm, hardly any, unless we’re watching a bird. ”It’s half your view!” he reminded us. “Focus on it!”
He went on to tell us that the National Weather Service costs a mere $4 per citizen per year, but its invaluable predictions are in jeopardy because of the current Federal cutbacks. I’m keen to read his book, The California Sky Watcher: Understanding Weather Patterns and What Comes Next. So much to learn about this wonderful world.
I only sketchnoted four book group meetings in 2024; my goal for this year is to do at least six. Here’s number 1!
Here are the sketchnotes from our last book group meeting—they’re pretty irrelevant if you weren’t there, or haven’t read the book. As always, I am not sketchnoting the book itself, but our two-hour discussion of it, which is always more free-ranging and interesting than I manage to sum up in one page.
Book group meetings are one of my monthly highlights, and I enjoy spending a few hours afterwards trying to distill our conversation into a page of sketch notes.
For our November book group meeting, we read a classic American novel written in 1918. My Ántonia by Willa Cather has been both widely praised and strongly criticised; we found justifications for both points of view.
Sketchnotes from book group. As always, I know I missed a lot of our discussion but I hope I captured all the salient points.
Well, I actually enjoyed American Pastoral much more than I did back in 2008, when I gave it one star (I wrote then: “The premise of this book was interesting, but it was way, way too wordy … Roth just goes on and on and on with boring details about people that aren’t even seminal to the story. Unimpressed.”)
And, as always, my appreciation was enhanced by a two hour discussion with the smart, widely-read, cosmopolitan folks in my book group. I don’t always sketchnote our meetings, but I’m always glad when I do.
I’m continuing to work on my sketchnoting skills. During book group I scribble and sketch madly, then next morning I try to pull it all together into a coherent, easy-to-follow summary. It’s an enjoyable challenge.
hashiworks 