Once-in-a-While Book Club
Our next meeting is September 14, 2025,
and we’re reading Still Life by Sarah Winman.
Contact me if you’d like to join us!
The Once-in-a-While Book Club is for book lovers who can’t commit to monthly meetings (I crack myself up). It’s an afternoon of bookish conversation that happens around my dining room table once-in-a-while. Read the book. Show up comfy and casual. I’ll do the rest.
Books we’ve read together so far
once-in-a-while book club DETAILS
Who: Limited to the first eight book-loving humans who email me at LorrieTom@LorrieT.com and say they’d like to attend. Address supplied after your spot is confirmed. Feel free to share this with a friend!
What:
Read our book selection by September 14th.
Show up COMFY and CASUAL.
Light snacks, tea, and fizzy water served. If you’d like to bring something to share, that’s welcome but not expected.
When: Sunday, September 14th from 3:30 to 5 PM PACIFIC.
Where: My dining room table in my actual house! Address supplied after enrollment confirmation, but for your planning purposes, I live in Rancho Palos Verdes near Peninsula High School.
How: Email me (LorrieTom@LorrieT.com) to see if there is still space and then I’ll send you my address.
Cost: This one’s on me. It’s free.
If you have any questions, contact me.
And remember, even if you hate this book, come to the meeting cuz different opinions make for good conversations—at least in The Land of Lorrie Tom Writes (and Reads).
Always reading and writing,
Lorrie
Here are more details about Still Life from the publisher:
Winner of the InWords Literary Award
A Good Morning America Book Club Pick
A Veranda Magazine Book Club Pick
A Parade Best Book of the Year
One of:
The Millions's Most Anticipated Books of 2021
Bookbub's The Best Historical Fiction to Read This Fall
Parade’s 25 Books We’ve Loved Reading This Fall
Parade's Best Book of the Year
Veranda's 25 Best New Books for Fall 2021
Lit Hub’s Best Books of the Week November
A captivating, bighearted, richly tapestried story of people brought together by love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster, by the celebrated author of Tin Man.
Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs fall around deserted villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her own youth. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amidst the rubble of war-torn Italy, and set off on a course of events that will shape Ulysses's life for the next four decades.
As Ulysses returns home to London, reimmersing himself in his crew at The Stoat and Parot—a motley mix of pub crawlers and eccentrics—he carries his time in Italy with him. And when an unexpected inheritance brings him back to where it all began, Ulysses knows better than to tempt fate, and returns to the Tuscan hills.
With beautiful prose, extraordinary tenderness, and bursts of humor and light, Still Life is a sweeping portrait of unforgettable individuals who come together to make a family, and a deeply drawn celebration of beauty and love in all its forms.