Elizabeth_P3

I enjoyed Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I have Known by Scott Simon very much.
I found it easy to pick up at the end of the day and read a few chapters. They were short happy, and sometimes sad, observations of life with pets.

As a 'cat person' I could relate more to the stories of Uly, Leona and Lenore. Their habits and characteristics brought back memories of the cats that I have loved over the years.
Both the happy times and the sad times.

As a journalist and interviewer, Simon's writing moves along smoothly with enjoyable insights into living with animals of all kinds. I highly recommend this book to all and especially to animal lovers.

We know that grief takes many forms and is not handled the same by all of us. This novel explores several ways in which grief is handled. While I didn't find the characters very likeable at first, they 'grew on me' as the story developed, and I could understand why they acted the way they did.

Poppy deals with losing her sister Dandelion by becoming her personality, spending a lot of time in her home and creating a relationship with Jake. Jake had originally reached out to Dandelion several months before her death, on Hinge, is recently divorced and has family issues of his own to deal with.

While love/romance stories are not my favorite genre, I stayed interested in this novel. All the main characters have secrets that come out eventually in the story. I wanted to keep reading to learn how the relationships evolved and how their situations were resolved.

I have been a member of my first book club for a few years now and found this guide very interesting and insightful as to how a book club can be successful. As I have been asked to be one of the 'leaders' this year the recommendations and suggestions will be most helpful.

Our book club has been in existence for over 15 years, and we feel it may be timely for a 'Book Club Health Check' and will use the questions provided.

This guide obviously has been very well researched and will provide the tools needed for us to determine what is working and what may need to be changed or updated within our club.

I highly recommend this book/guide to anyone currently in a book club or who is thinking of starting one.