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February Book Club Selection: JOY FOR BEGINNERS by Erica Bauermeister 

 

 

Having survived a life-threatening illness, Kate celebrates by gathering with six close friends.  At an intimate, outdoor dinner on a warm September evening, the women challenge Kate to start her new lease on life by going white-water rafting down the Grand Canyon with her daughter.  Kate, however, is reluctant to take the risk.  That is, until her friend Marion proposes a pact: if Kate will face the rapids, each woman will do one thing in the next year that scares her.  Kate agrees, with one provision — she didn’t get to choose her challenge, so she gets to choose theirs.

 

 

You can read an excerpt of JOY FOR BEGINNERS  here.

 

 

Erica Bauermeister knew what she wanted to write back in college – novels that took the small, “unimportant” things in life and made them into art.  She then spent the next twenty-five years growing up enough to write those books.  She went to graduate school and co-authored 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide and Let’s Hear It For the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.   She got married, had children, lived in Italy.  At the age of 45, she took a cooking class and got the inspiration for her first novel, The School of Essential Ingredients.  Having accomplished one of her scariest goals, she decided to write about fear and challenges – Joy For Beginners was the result.

 

What others are saying about JOY FOR BEGINNERS:

“Sensual…evocative…A book designed to both fill you up and make you hungry for life.”
–Publisher’s Weekly

 

“Moving, touching, wonderfully written; inspiring to read.  Joy for Beginners takes on us the emotional journeys of seven women seeking to transform their lives and proves that sometimes what we really need to inspire us to change is a good, firm shove.”
–Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

“Bauermeister’s mastery of character development and keen eye for description transform what could have been just another sisterhood book into something deeper.”
–Seattle Times

“Bauermeister has created a cast of textured and nuanced characters who individually and as a group speak to what makes women interesting and enigmatic. Her prose is velvety smooth, revealing life at once mournful and auspicious. Joyful, indeed.”
–Library Journal, starred review