Announcing My Brand-New Book Club: Read With Crystal

Okay, for years and years, people have been begging me to do a book club. I always felt like I wasn’t sure if enough people would actually be interested or if it was just adding another thing to my plate.

But then, my sister, Gretchen, had an idea a few weeks ago that was brilliant: Instead of trying to make it some big and complicated endeavor, why not just pick a book every month that I was going to read and invite you all to read it with me and then do a recap post at the end of the month.

I immediately loved the idea. It was so simple and doable — and it sounded FUN!

So, welcome to my brand-new book club: Read With Crystal.

How the Book Club Will Work

Here’s how it will work:

1. I’ll announce the book club pick for the month on the blog and on social media. You can buy the book online, from a local book store, get it from the library, or listen to the audiobook. You choose!

2. We’ll read through the book that month. I may mention it here and there on social media or on the blog. I may not. It just depends!

3. At the end of the month, I will post a post with my full review and thoughts of the book. I will invite you to share your thoughts in the comments on that blog post or in the post I share on social media.

4. That’s it! We’ll repeat this every month with a new book.

You can join us every month or just on the months that the book looks interesting to you. Whatever works for you — this is a no obligation book club! 🙂

September’s Book Club Pick

September’s book pick is Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. This is an historical fiction book that has been highly recommended to me.

Here’s the description from Amazon:

According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.

From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.

But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.

How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? A captivating story of women helping each other, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a triumphant reimagining of the life of one person who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.

I have not read any books before on this topic or time period, so I am very intrigued and excited to read it. If you are joining us in reading it, let us know in the comments below. If you’ve read the book before, feel free to share your honest opinion (no spoilers, please!)

Get a copy of Lady Tan’s Circle of Women here — or check your local library to get a copy (I was able to get a copy without a wait at my library!)

Any questions? Ask away in the comments! Also, if you have suggestions for future book club books, let me know! I will be compiling a list!

Note: I will do my best to pick books that are clean (no bedroom scenes) and don’t have a lot of cursing in them. However, since I won’t have read the book before I pick it, I am not endorsing a book just by picking it. But I will do my best to research it to try to make sure it’s no more than a PG or PG-13 type book.