Book Drives Los Angeles

November Book Club - Losing Clementine by Ashley Ream

World-renowned artist and sharp-tongued wit Clementine Pritchard is done. Years of therapy and medication have gifted her with little more than sweaty palms and gastric upset. Now, after flushing away a cabinet full of prescriptions, she gives herself thirty days to tie up loose ends (finish one final painting, make nice with her ex-husband, find a home for her cat) and enjoy one last month of art-world parties, road trips and outrageous acts. What Clementine doesn't expect is to uncover secrets surrounding the decades-old tragedy that befell her mother and sister. With the date of her carefully planned demise fast approaching, can she dive back into the messy business of family and life? Does she want to?

Evening Book Club: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Book for **November**: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Club is for the girls (and the gays!) to get together and chat about the book we read this month. Age range early/mid twenties ✨ Please RSVP to join the event! Since we only have 10 spots no cancellations please. We will discuss over tea or wine at historic Cafe Mak in ktown. If you cannot finish the book on time, feel free to still come and hang out :)

Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu

WHAT WE'RE READING: Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu WHAT IT IS ABOUT: "Based on Cartarescu's own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist's life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. One character asks another: when you rush into the burning building, will you save the newborn or the artwork? On a broad scale, the novel's investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art. The novel is grounded in the reality of late 1970s/early 1980s Communist Romania, including long lines for groceries, the absurdities of the education system, and the misery of family life. The text includes sequences in a tuberculosis sanatorium, an encounter with an anti-death protest movement, a society of dream investigators, and an extended visit to the miniscule world of dust mites living on a microscope slide. Combining fiction with autobiography and history, Solenoid ruminates on the exchanges possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art, as various, monstrous dimensions erupt within the Communist present." WHERE WE'RE MEETING: 4100 Bar in Silver Lake A NOTE ON PARKING: Street parking should be more readily accessible on Sunset Blvd to the west of the meet-up location. A NOTE ON THE MEET-UP SEATING LOCATION: Meet-ups are generally held on the bar terrace, if sufficient seating is available. Please dress warmly in the event of cool evening weather! A NOTE ON RSVPING: If your name is on the attendee list for a scheduled meet-up and you no longer plan on attending the event, please remove your name from the attendee list at least a week before the scheduled event to allow individuals on the waitlist sufficient time to read the book beforehand (no worries if a cancellation has to be last-minute, though!). Happy reading! Colin

Women in Big Data LA Book Club

Our next **Women in Big Data SoCal Book Club** is here! Join us for an afternoon of good conversation, coffee, and a thought-provoking discussion about how AI is changing the way we live and work. **This Quarter's Book** ***[I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything](https://joannastern.com/)*** by **Joanna Stern** What happens when a technology journalist decides to let AI take over almost every aspect of her life? In *I Am Not a Robot*, Joanna Stern documents her year-long experiment using AI to tackle everything from work and productivity to everyday tasks and personal decisions. The book explores what happens when we move beyond simply *using* AI tools and start relying on them to do things we would normally do ourselves. Expect plenty of humor, curiosity, and questions about what AI can—and perhaps shouldn't—do for us. **About the Author** Joanna Stern is an award-winning technology journalist and video creator best known for her work covering consumer technology, AI, and the ways technology impacts everyday life. She was a senior personal technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal, where she has covered everything from smartphones and computers to emerging technologies and now has started her own tech media company, New Things. **What to Expect** This is a casual, welcoming discussion—not a formal book review! **📣 Haven't read the book yet? You're still invited!** **You** **do not need to finish—or even read—the book to join us.** If you didn't get a chance to read it, you're still welcome to come, listen to the discussion, share your thoughts and perspectives, and be part of the conversation. We'd love to have you there! **Event Details** Date: Sunday, November 15, 2026 Time: 2:00 PM Location: Sorry Not Sorry - 11520 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064 We’ll be reserving a space in the front patio, and as always, each guest will be responsible for their own tab. ☕ Grab an afternoon drink, bring your thoughts (and your questions!), and join us for our quarterly book club. We hope to see you there! 📚🤖 \-\-\-\-\-\- Follow us on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14309306/) to get the latest updates on our events. \-\-\-\-\-\- **Photo Release Notice:** By attending this event, you consent to photographs being taken and used in Women In Big Data's promotional materials. Please inform organizers upon arrival if you prefer not to be photographed.

November Book Discussion: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

# **Our November Book Has Been Chosen! 📚** Thanks to everyone who voted! Our next **Books & Brew** read is: ## 📖 *Man's Search for Meaning* — Viktor E. Frankl Grab a copy, start reading, and join us for a thought-provoking conversation! ### About the Book Drawing on his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl explores how people find purpose and meaning even in the face of unimaginable suffering. Part memoir and part psychological exploration, *Man's Search for Meaning* introduces Frankl's approach to psychotherapy, known as logotherapy, which centers on the human search for meaning as a fundamental source of motivation. Through his reflections on suffering, resilience, freedom, and personal responsibility, Frankl challenges readers to consider what gives life meaning and how we respond to circumstances beyond our control. A powerful and deeply reflective book, *Man's Search for Meaning* offers plenty to think about—and even more to discuss together.

Queer Book Club- "Palaver" by Bryan Washington

[Book + Movie] HORROR BOOK CLUB (November): “Pet Sematary”

Brown and Gay in LA by Anthony Ocampo

**See you there!**

The Tusk That Did The Damage by Tania James

Orphaned by poachers as a calf and sold into a life of labor and exhibition, the Gravedigger breaks free of his chains and begins terrorizing the countryside, earning his name from the humans he kills and then tenderly buries. Manu, the studious younger son of a rice farmer, loses his cousin to the Gravedigger’s violence and is drawn, with his wayward brother Jayan, into the sordid, alluring world of poaching. Emma is a young American working on a documentary with her college best friend, who witnesses the porous boundary between conservation and corruption and finds herself in her own moral gray a risky affair with the veterinarian who is the film’s subject. As the novel hurtles toward its climax, these three storylines fuse into a wrenching meditation on love and betrayal, duty and loyalty, and the vexed relationship between man and nature. We read this book in the early days of the book club and it has always stayed with me, therefore I want to revisit again with all the new people that have made this book club a part of their reading life.

Book Club: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

In *Klara and the Sun*, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love? From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. Looking forward to enjoying afternoon tea at the Callisto Tea House in Pasadena. The menu can be found here: [https://callistoteahouse.com/pages/menu](https://callistoteahouse.com/pages/menu) The event fee will secure your reservation and be applied to membership dues, which covers the cost of the website. The event fee is NONREFUNDABLE unless the event is canceled by the organizer. To join the waitlist comment on the event page. If you have RSVPed and can no longer attend, please contact me directly and I will contact the people on the waiting list and then move you to "not going" when I find a replacement. Thank you and happy reading!

Yesteryear- Caro Claire Burke

[Book Only] HORROR BOOK CLUB (November): “The Harrowing”