November A Good Yarn Book Club: What a Time to Be Alive

Join a group of craft-curious makers who get together and unwind via making: knitting, needlepoint, collage. You name it. Listen to the month’s book while you craft at home & then bring your WIP or FO to show off while we discuss the book!

To join the club subscribe via the Old Town Books page on Libro.fm You will get your first audiobook free! RSVP for our IRL meetups here then get crafting (and listening.)

By attending any and all Old Town Books events you are agreeing to our code of conduct.

This month we are listening to What a Time to Be Alive by Jade Chang.

About the Book:

A deeply moving and often hilarious novel following a woman who becomes an internet folk hero in the most unexpected way, catapulting her into fame and influence just as she’s finally beginning to reckon with her complicated past

Lola Treasure Gold can’t figure out her life. She’s broke, unemployed, and back in her childhood home, a crumbling cottage in the Hollywood Hills. Worse—unspeakably worse—one of her closest friends has just died. So nobody is more surprised than Lola when a jackpot falls in her lap: she stars in a viral video, opening a surprising path for her to become a self-help guru.

With the encouragement of her other best friend, Celi—still alive, thank god—Lola embraces the public interest in her perceived message. But is she a scammer or a sage? Just as Lola is telling others to be their own guiding lights, she can’t seem to find hers: she’s grieving; she’s accused of using the notoriety of her friend’s death to fuel her rise; and she’s full of questions about the fate of her mother, who came to America pregnant, fleeing China’s one-child policy, got deported when Lola was eight, and now has totally disappeared.

Driven by an exuberant, searching spirit, Jade Chang’s kaleidoscopic new novel is a deep examination of the ways we commodify belief, the power and precarity of fame, and the delicious terror of being truly seen. What a Time to Be Alive asks if we can look honestly at the world and still love it; the answer is a brilliant, resounding yes.

Host or Publisher Old Town Books