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November’s Book Club Selection: Love & Saffron

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Cover of Love & Saffron

UPDATE: NOVEMBER BOOK CLUB POSTPONED
Note from Grace: “Due to sudden illness, I need to postpone the book club for LOVE & SAFFRON. Working on a new date with the author. Please sign up for the newsletter or follow me on Instagram for updates. Thanks!”

Hello, booklovers! I hope you’ve been having a lovely Fall – a season that epitomizes warmth, coziness, and community. The perfect time to take a trip to the Pacific Northwest in America with a book that celebrates food. letter-writing, and friendship!

I hope you’ll join me, over the next two months, in reading (and, I know, enjoying) the novel Love & Saffron: A Novel of Friendship, Food, And Love by Kim Fay.

Kim will be joining us for the last half hour of the book club to answer questions and share her own insights and stories about the book. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter – to the side of this post (or at the bottom if you’re reading this on mobile) – to stay updated about all things book club and receive reading resources and reminders.

I hope you will be able to read along with us this month and make it to the book club – registration details are below. I’m looking forward to sharing Love & Saffron with you.

Happy Reading!
❤ , Grace

BOARDING PASS BOOK CLUB
Date: RESCHEDULED
Time: RESCHEDULED
Author : Kim Fay
Book: Love & Saffron: A Novel of Friendship, Food, And Love

Even if you have attended a previous Boarding Pass Book Club, this is a new Zoom meeting, specific for the upcoming book club, so you will need to register again.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

BOOK INFO:

Copies of Love & Saffron, with bookplates signed just for us by author Kim Fay, are available by special arrangement through Beach Books in Seaside, Oregon. They are generously offering a 15% discount on this book for members of the book club, so please sign up to our newsletter (see quick signup in the right margin or at the bottom of this page) if you already haven’t and I’ll be sending that code to you in your book club prep emails. Beach Books is such a wonderful indie bookstore with the best staff, so do check them out for this, and your other book needs!

CLICK HERE to view / purchase Love & Saffron

ABOUT LOVE & SAFFRON

The Instant National Bestseller and #1 Indie Next Pick

In the vein of the classic 84, Charing Cross Road, this witty and tender novel follows two women in 1960s America as they discover that food really does connect us all, and that friendship and laughter are the best medicine.

When twenty-seven-year-old Joan Bergstrom sends a fan letter–as well as a gift of saffron–to fifty-nine-year-old Imogen Fortier, a life-changing friendship begins. Joan lives in Los Angeles and is just starting out as a writer for the newspaper food pages. Imogen lives on Camano Island outside Seattle, writing a monthly column for a Pacific Northwest magazine, and while she can hunt elk and dig for clams, she’s never tasted fresh garlic–exotic fare in the Northwest of the sixties. As the two women commune through their letters, they build a closeness that sustains them through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the unexpected in their own lives.
 
Food and a good life—they can’t be separated. It is a discovery the women share, not only with each other, but with the men in their lives. Because of her correspondence with Joan, Imogen’s decades-long marriage blossoms into something new and exciting, and in turn, Joan learns that true love does not always come in the form we expect it to. Into this beautiful, intimate world comes the ultimate test of Joan and Imogen’s friendship—a test that summons their unconditional trust in each other.
 
A brief respite from our chaotic world, Love & Saffron is a gem of a novel, a reminder that food and friendship are the antidote to most any heartache, and that human connection will always be worth creating.

AUTHOR INFO:

Photo of Kim Fay from Penguin Random House’s website

Learn more about Kim on her website: https://www.kimfaybooks.com/about

Born and raised in Washington State, Kim Fay is a former bookseller and the author of Communion: A Culinary Journey Through Vietnam, a Gourmand World Cookbook Award winner, and The Map of Lost Memories, an Edgar Award finalist for Best First Novel. Fay lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Jim, and their dog, Mabel. Love & Saffron is her second novel. 

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September’s Book Club Selection: HEART RADICAL

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Cover of Heart Radical

Hello, everyone! I hope your September has been off to a good start. I am so excited to present this month’s selection, HEART RADICAL: A SEARCH FOR LANGUAGE, LOVE, AND BELONGING by Anne Liu Kellor.

Here’s a little bit about the book, in Anne’s own words, from her website: “I wanted to understand how my path was tied to my mother tongue. As a young, multiracial, bilingual American woman, I traveled through China, the country of my mother’s birth. Along the way, I tried on different roles—spiritual seeker, English teacher, student of Chinese, girlfriend, artist, and daughter—and continually asked myself: Why am I called to make this journey”

I met Anne through this book club and also invited her to read at the bookstore where I used to work. Her reading was thought-provoking and insightful and Anne is wonderful speaker – I know you will all love getting to chat with her during the Author Visit portion of the book club.

In related, exciting news, HEART RADICAL was recently announced as one of the 2022 Washington State Book Awards finalists in the memoir category.

I hope you will be able to read along with us this month and make it to the book club – registration details are below. I’m looking forward to sharing HEART RADICAL with you.

Happy Reading!
❤ , Grace

BOARDING PASS BOOK CLUB
Date: Saturday, September 24th
Time: 6 PM PST (UTC-7)
Author : Anne Liu Kellor
Book: Heart Radical: A Search For Language, Love, And Belonging

Please register in advance for this session at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAsfuyhrz8qE9JzwDrjVG9rrRa9nCM5rGYV.

Even if you have attended a previous Boarding Pass Book Club, this is a new Zoom meeting, specific for the upcoming book club, so you will need to register again.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

BOOK INFO:

Wanting to understand how her path is tied to her mother tongue, Anne, a young, multiracial American woman, travels through China, the country of her mother’s birth. Along the way, she tries on different roles—seeker, teacher, student, girlfriend, artist, and daughter—and continually asks herself: Why do I feel called to make this journey?

Whether witnessing a Tibetan sky burial, teaching English at a university in Chengdu, visiting her grandmother in LA, or falling in love with a Chinese painter, Anne is always in pursuit of intimacy with others, even as she is all too aware of her silences and separation. For two years, she settles into a comfortable routine in her boyfriend’s apartment and regains fluency in Chinese, a language she spoke as a young child but has used less and less as an adult. Eventually, however, her desire to know herself in other ways surfaces again. She misses speaking English, she feels suffocated by urban, polluted China, and she starts to fall for another man. Ultimately, Anne realizes that to live her truth as a mixed-race, bilingual woman she must embrace all of her influences and layers. In a world that often wants us to choose a side or fit an ideal, she learns that she can both belong and not belong wherever she is, and that home is ultimately found within.

AUTHOR INFO:

Photo of Anne Liu Kellor from her website

Learn more about Anne on her website: http://www.anneliukellor.com/

Anne Liu Kellor is a mixed-race Chinese American writer, editor, and teacher based in Seattle. Her essays have appeared in YES! Magazine, Longreads, Fourth Genre, Witness, New England Review, Entropy, The Normal School, Los Angeles Review, Literary Mama, and many more. She earned her MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles, and is the recipient of fellowships from Hedgebrook, The Seventh Wave, Jack Straw Writers Program, 4Culture, and Hypatia-in-the-Woods. Anne teaches writing workshops and leads writing retreats across the Pacific Northwest. She also facilitates a year-long creative nonfiction manuscript program for womxn seeking mentorship and community.

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May’s Book Club Selection: BEYOND GUILT TRIPS

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I am thrilled to present our May selection, BEYOND GUILT TRIPS: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World by author, professor, and DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusion) consultant, Dr. Anu Taranath.

I got to know Dr. Anu when I worked with her on events at University Book Store and every time I hear her speak, I am left feeling inspired, looking at the world with a new, broader, and more inclusive perspective.

This is the perfect book for one of the first meetings of Boarding Pass Book Club and I know that it will be a thought-provoking guide for our future literary journeys. I am looking forward to sharing this with you.

Happy Reading!
❤ , Grace

BOARDING PASS BOOK CLUB
Meeting 2
Date: Saturday, May 21st
Time: 6 PM PST (UTC-7)
Author : Dr. Anu Taranath
Book: Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel In An Unequal World

Please register in advance for this session at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAsfuyhrz8qE9JzwDrjVG9rrRa9nCM5rGYV.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

BOOK INFO:

  • Washington State Book Award Finalist in Nonfiction
  • Oprah Magazine’s “26 Best Travel Books of All Times”
  • Fodors’ Travel “Best Books to Bring on Vacation”
  • Winner of Newsweek’s Future of Travel Awards in Storytelling
  • Wishing Shelf Book Award Finalist
  • Foreward Indies Book Award Finalist
  • Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist
  • Global Shakers “40 Leaders in Sustainable Tourism”

Every year, hundreds of thousands of young people pack their bags to study or volunteer abroad. Well-intentioned and curious Westerners–brought up to believe that international travel broadens our horizons–travel to low-income countries to learn about people and cultures different from their own. While travel abroad can provide much-needed perspective, it can also be deeply unsettling, confusing, and discomforting. Travelers can find themselves unsure about how to think or speak about the differences in race or culture they find, even though these differences might have fueled their desire to travel in the first place.

In Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World, storyteller Anu Taranath begins at home, unpacking our baggage about who we are, where we come from, and how much we have. She takes us on a journey through engaging personal travel stories and thought-provoking questions, providing us with tools to grapple with our discomfort and navigate differences with accountability and connection. Yes, travel! But be mindful. Be present.

Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World was shortlisted for the Washington State Book Award, named one of Oprah Magazine’s “26 Best Travel Books of All Times” and Fodor’s Travels best “13 Books to Inspire Your Travels.” In its one year since publication, the book has been featured in numerous magazines including YES!, AFAR, Mindful Magazine, Bitch, and National Geographic. Dr. Anu has been interviewed by the Peabody award-winning podcast “To the Best of Our Knowledge” and “Travel with Rick Steves” radio program.

AUTHOR INFO:

Learn more about Dr. Anu on her website: https://www.anutaranath.com/

Dr. Anu brings both passion and expertise to her work as a speaker, facilitator and educator. As faculty at the University of Washington for the past 18-years, she teaches about global issues, race, gender, identity, and equity. A four-time member of Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, she has also received the Seattle Weekly’s “Best of Seattle” recognition, the UW’s Distinguished Teaching Award, and multiple US Fulbright Fellowships to work abroad.

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