Hamnet is a fictional account of Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, who died at age 11 in 1596. The book is essentially a family-type drama telling the background between Will Shakespeare and his wife Agnes, following their relationship as they deal with the grief of losing their son.
Generally, everyone liked this book.
Azad found it depressing (side note, he doesn't like Amazon), but thought the writing was good.
Andrea found the use of the present tense slowed her down, but she did enjoy it.
Tom thought it was interesting the way the correspondence between characters worked as a storytelling device. He also found the story about the flea that brought the plague very interesting.
Joe thought it was great to listen to. He listened to it on Audible and highly recommends it.
Everyone agreed that reading it during a pandemic gave it a different dimension (since the book takes place during an outbreak of Bubonic Plague AKA the Black Death).
Moving on to future book club business:
It was proposed to have winter hours (so no one would have to drive in the dark), but nothing was decided. We discussed Leroy's suggestion (that each month a different member of the book club steps up and suggests a book and organizes a place to meet) was well liked by the group. Also the idea of getting more time to read, so having earlier notice as to what book we will be reading was also important.
With that in mind, it was decided that we will skip November's meeting and shift December's meeting earlier (so it won't conflict with the holidays).
The next book (keeping up with the pandemic literature) will be "Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe" by William Rosen.
The next book club will be held on December 2nd, 7pm, tentatively to be held in St. Sahag's parlor.
We are still looking for someone to take the lead on a book/meeting for January, February and March.

Notes this Month by Peter Hajinian