Book Club - Now Reading: The Rules of Inheritance

Coming Soon!

The First Husband
by Laura Dave
 
May 30
My Artist's Way Toolkit
 
June 13
What Alice Forgot
by Liane Moriarty
 
June 27

A Discovery of Witches
Deborah Harkness
A Good Hard Look
Ann Napolitano
A Jane Austen Education
William Deresiewicz
Born Wicked
Jessica Spotswood
Caleb's Crossing
Geraldine Brooks
Diary of a Mad Fat Girl
Stephanie McAfee
Faithful Place
Tana French
Getting to Happy
Terry McMillan
Girl in Translation
Jean Kwok
How to Be an American Housewife
Margaret Dilloway
Lost and Found
Geneen Roth
Love at First Bark
Julie Klam
Lunch Wars
Amy Kalafa
Rules of Civility
Amor Towles
Sea Change
Jeremy Page
Slow Love
Dominique Browning
The Beach Trees
Karen White
The Book of Jonas
Stephen Dau
The Fault in Our Stars
John Green
The Kid
Sapphire
The Lake of Dreams
Kim Edwards
The Magic Room
Jeffrey Zaslow
The Rules of Inheritance
Claire Bidwell Smith
The Underside of Joy
Seré Prince Halverson
The Weird Sisters
Eleanor Brown
Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore
Stella Duffy
What Happened to Goodbye
Sarah Dessen
Where She Went
Gayle Forman
Why Women Need Fat
William D. Lassek, M.D. & Steven J.C. Gaulin, Ph.D.
You Have No Idea
Vanessa Williams & Helen Williams
More >

Meet Book Club Host


Karen Ballum
Karen Ballum has been blogging about books on her blog Sassymonkey Reads since 2005 and on BlogHer since 2006.

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Reading Next!

A savvy, page-turning novel about a woman torn between her husband and the man she thought she'd marry. Stay tuned for The First Husband!

Recent Comments on Book Club

 
Now Reading: The Rules of Inheritance
Claire Bidwell Smith (used with permission)Author: Claire Bidwell Smith
What Did You Think of The Rules of Inheritance?

Love, Colin and Other Drugs

3/14/12 2:31pm by sassymonkey
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One of the things that I found the hardest to read in Claire Bidwell Smith's The Rules of Inheritance was not her mother's death. Or her father's death. Don't get me wrong, it was difficult to read about their deaths. It was also difficult to read about her addiction to alcohol. But it was her relationship with Colin that I really found the most difficult -- her beautiful, flawed relationship. I wanted her leave but I understood why she stayed. We don't always love things that are good for us.  Read more >

Then and Now

3/8/12 12:51pm by sassymonkey
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Claire Bidwell Smith's memoir The Rules of Inheritance isn't just about grief. It's also about knowing yourself -- knowing who you were, who you are and who you might become. Sometimes the person we were simply can't fathom the person we have become.  Read more >

Should You Stay? Or Should You Go?

3/1/12 3:20pm by sassymonkey
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There were a number of times in Claire Bidwell Smith's memoir, The Rules of Inheritance, where she was faced with a seemingly easy decision -- should she stay? Or should she go? It's a decision we all face at some point and we all know that though the question is simple on the surface, deciding what to do is rarely simple.  Read more >

This Is Part of Our Narrative

2/22/12 11:34am by sassymonkey
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At times during her memoir, The Rules of Inheritance, Claire Bidwell Smith tells herself, and us, that a moment is part of her narrative. When it's something that she wants to remember, when it's something that she wants to feel, she marks it for remembrance. While I don't think it's anything that I've consciously thought of in that exact way, I knew exactly what she meant when she said it.  Read more >