Cozy Corner Book Club

This month we are inspired by the incomparable Michelle Obama in her beautiful new memoir Becoming. We are joined this month by Lindsey's college friend Kristen Portillo, and had so much fun discussing the book with her! | SPOILER ALERT! As always, we will discuss spoilers in this chat. If that's not your thing, no worries. Come back after you read the book! | "In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As first lady of the United States of America - the first African American to serve in that role - she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the US and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare. In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations - and whose story inspires us to do the same."

Shawn and Lindsey discuss The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins, the prequel to the bestselling YA dystopian series The Hunger Games | SPOILER ALERT! As always, we will discuss spoilers in this chat. If that's not your thing, come back after you read the book! With this book, we will also be openly discussing the trilogy. | "Ambition will fuel him. Competition will drive him. But power has its price." | Intro and outro by Smooth Lovin by Kevin MacLeod, Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4379-smooth-lovin, License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Shawn and Lindsey discuss Graceling by Kristin Cashore, a Young Adult fantasy novel, and the first in a series.| SPOILER ALERT! As always, we will discuss spoilers in this chat. But only spoilers for this book, not the rest of the series! | "The book tells the story of Katsa, a young woman with a "Grace", or power, which enhances her survival skills and makes her a highly efficient killer. It takes place in a world where Gracelings, or people with special powers, are identified as children because their eyes are two different colors and put in the service of the king."| Intro and outro by Smooth Lovin by Kevin MacLeod, Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4379-smooth-lovin, License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

For April, we finally got to read the much anticipated Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid! This book is written in a unique biopic format, which makes it feel like an episode of Inside the Music on MTV. | SPOILER ALERT! As always, we will discuss spoilers in this chat. If that's not your thing, no worries. Come back after you read the book! | "Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now. Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road. Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend." | Intro and outro by Smooth Lovin by Kevin MacLeod, Link, https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4379-smooth-lovin, License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

We're ringing in 2020 with a throwback to the Roaring 20s, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald! | SPOILER ALERT! As always, we will discuss spoilers in this chat. If that's not your thing, no worries. Come back after you read the book! | "The Great Gatsby is a novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald and first published in 1925. It follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream."