Our violent society -
The kidnapping and murder of 23-year-old Andrea Bharatt touched a nerve yet again in our society. If the reported figures are correct, there have been over 700 female murder victims since 2000. The list is long of women and girls whose lives have been snatched, not just by strangers, but by those close to them.
The sense of outrage is deafening, and like all outrage it passes and becomes a memory or a knot in our stomachs, waiting to unwind when the next appalling act becomes public, but outrage is not enough. We need to understand why and how we are subject to such violence. Like the pandemic, we should use this singular moment to really interrogate the factors that underpin the violence, not just against women, but that which beats in our hearts steadily, and to press for the government to be more proactive in keeping us safe.
You may be cool, but are you Century Club cool?
It’s time to meet more of the coolest readers in SouthCoast.
Each year, I challenge SouthCoasters to read 100 books to make my BookLovers Century Club. Reading 25-49 books would qualify you for the Quarter-Century Club, and 50-99 books, the Half-Century Club.
We’ve met members of all tiers in recent weeks. If you missed your neighbors’ mention, or your own, follow me on Twitter and Facebook to catch up. (Print readers: both links are listed at the end of this column!)
I want to jump right in now to mention as many readers as possible…
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It has been nearly a year now since most of us have enjoyed a book in any of the usual places: a coffee shop, on a commute, in an airplane, on a beach. But that hasn t stopped people from reading â in fact, the opposite. Speaking personally, 2020 made me
extra grateful for all the moments I spent with paper and ink, away from yet another screen containing no good news.
Now we seem on the cusp of what is hopefully the beginning of the end, and it becomes possible again to imagine reading books in places like coffee shops or on transcontinental flights. But our to-be-read piles might be starting to look a little shorter after all those months in quarantine.
Welp. [Long whistle.] We just endured one helluva year, friends.
We got by with a little help from our books.
Stories. Words. Escape into our own imagination, far from the grotesque burning landscape that was 2020.
And it shows in the numbers of this year s Century Club.
Eight years ago, I first challenged SouthCoast BookLovers to read 100 books in a year to make my BookLovers Century Club. Reading 25-49 books would qualify you for the Quarter-Century Club, and 50-99 books, the Half-Century Club. (Yes, audiobooks count.)
Each year, for eight years, this club all three tiers has grown in number and spirit. We are the Biggest Reading Club in SouthCoast. And damn, do we have Heart.