The Club: A Reese's Book Club Pick

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The most spectacular of all is Island Home—a closely-guarded, ultraluxurious resort, just off the English coast—and its three-day launch party is easily the most coveted A-list invite of the decade. We know who the murderer is from the beginning, so the only mystery aspect is her motive. Granted, the motive was not very predictable (for me anyway), but I found myself cringing when we did find out the motive. It seemed like a lot of build-up for a mediocre motive reveal. I have always been fascinated with the private club and magnet for the celebrity and creative elite, Soho House (even going so far as to try to scheme a way into joining until I learned of the exorbitant membership fee). Having attended Soho House functions as a guest, I always wondered when happened with the inner workings and admissions of such clubs, so this book was basically written for me. What made the book so engaging was the forward motion of the narrative as we became acquainted with first one, then another. Much of the detail was retrieved from the journals of Boswell. Without Johnson, Boswell would have had no story, but his remarkable skill in recall was amazing, and he confesses his debauchery as well as Johnson’s fabulous pronouncements. A substantial section of The Club focused on these two fascinating characters, in large part because we know so much more about the details of their lives.

The only other problems I had with The Club are twofold, and in relation to the book’s upsides are details which don’t detract too much as a whole, but which are, nevertheless, both unappealing and unnecessary.But behind the scenes, tensions are at breaking point: the ambitious and expensive project has pushed the Home Group's CEO and his long-suffering team to their absolute limits. All of them have something to hide—and that's before the beautiful people with their own ugly secrets even set foot on the island. The Home Group is a collection of ultra-exclusive private members’ clubs and a global phenomenon, and the opening of its most ambitious project yet – Island Home, a forgotten island transformed into the height of luxury – is billed as the celebrity event of the decade. Damrosch did not limit his attention to this A list. Johnson had numerous women in his circle. His bouts with depression and his tics made him occasionally a peculiar character, and several women cared for and supported him. An intellectual group, they were drawn to his brilliant mind. Hester Thrale and her husband invited him to live with them, and they regularly maintained a spot for him in their expansive household. Hester herself was a writer, even while producing a baby just about every year. It was all possible because of the multitude of servants and cooks and nannies who did all the work.

The Club is narrated through a third-person narrator from the point of view of a focal character: Jess, the newly installed head of housekeeping; Annie, the flamboyant head of membership; Nikki, who has worked for Home Group since she was 16-years-old and is now the personal assistant to Ned Grooms, the CEO of Home Group; and Adam, Ned’s younger brother and director of special projects. Portions of an article printed in Vanity Fair about the disastrous launch party are included in each chapter to give the reader a less biased view of what happened. At the end of the weekend, four people who attended the launch party are dead. Others requested to leave the island even before the party ended.The Club was formed in 1764 by Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds. The 55 year-old Johnson had fallen into one of his deep depressions and Reynolds, his friend and the most famous painter in 18th century England, developed the notion of The Club as group therapy for "Dr" Johnson, a Doctor by virtue of one year at Oxford and an honorary degree conferred in 1765 by Trinity College. In The Club's second year Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language would revolutionize the world of word-keeping and help to standardize the language.

Smith argued that the true wealth lay in the nation's ability to produce goods, to trade those goods, and to employ its citizens/ Production was encouraged by the Division of Labor, trade was encouraged by Self Interest and by Laissez-Faire. The characters and their secrets were great, I loved how they seeped out gradually over the course of the book and that the books chosen for the book club would reflect each of them. They were written very cleverly, the atmosphere was built up perfectly and the switching between the timelines made it all come together in the end. Enter Alice, who moves in next door to Lucy, Alice knows exactly who Lucy is and wants revenge...and if she finds out the secrets of the other 3 in the ‘clique’ then the more the merrier and so via a Book Club where she chooses books to match their ‘crimes’ chaos suddenly arrives, and life will never be the same for any of them On the controversies around the French Revolution, Damrosch, looking at Burke and his allies, points out:Another psychological thriller with an emphasis on the "psychology" and not on the thrills! Lucy was a well-rounded character (if TSTL), but the plot was slow-going, and once again relies on an antagonist seeking their revenge in the most silly, elaborate way possible. (We know from the get-go that Alice wants to destroy Lucy's life - the only mystery is what her motive actually is.) Instead of Alice sneaking into Lucy's house and just moving her calendar around and other boring shits-and-giggles things, I ended up wanting Alice to just get on with it and break this story out of its tedium.

Ellery Lloyd is a husband and wife writing team who is often noted for their prior work in People Like Her. The Club, however, was not funny like People Like Her. It was really dark, and it could have used some humor to lighten it up. Damrosch’ prose is delivered in such a way that any potential for moments of pretence or interludes whereby the reader needs to “push forward” with grit are abated & the absolute delight of the main characters & their abundance of excellent anecdotal content, filled with quirky quotations and diary excerpts! These can be split into roughly three groups: first, the lesser-known Club members; second, the (male) non-Club members, who were friends or associates of Johnson and/or Boswell; and thirdly, the female (non)members of that (nonexistent) “ shadow Club” that I mentioned earlier. The others do matter. They are especially interesting in this era of English colonial power. Burke was an ally for the American colonists as well as those under British rule in India. Gibbon became fascinated with Rome, and its decline, in part because of what he was seeing in England and America; the common topic is empire. Adam Smith accurately prophesied the rise of industrial England in the next century. Joseph Epsein's rave review: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-club... [paywalled. Ask if you would like a copy].I will include one woman's words, at least; this is Fanny Burney, about the noted beauty Elizabeth Linley: "Had I been, for my sins, born of the male race, I should certainly have added one more to Miss Linley's train." The book was thoroughly researched, well written and entertaining. It made me want to read more about some of the characters. I also now want to read “Evelina” by Frances Burney, which was described in this book. I like it when books lead me to other books. Burke, for example, thought of himself as a Whig. However, he was such a traditionalist that he could probably have passed as a Tory. Like Johnson, he saw “subordination” as the key structure of “deference that kept society cooperative and peaceful” (165-166). Burke might have opposed taxing the Americans. He never thought, however, that they should themselves. Nor did he really think of that of the people in general. He believed in “government for the people by the entitled few” (165). Alice is out for revenge, and it took me until the last few chapters, just before it was revealed, to work out what exactly she wanted revenge for.