Greater Sacramento Women's Book Club

Wed, Nov 5 · 6:00 PM PST

RSVL November 2025 — Opposable Thumbs, by Matt Singer

Raley’s Gather Room, Douglas Blvd, 1915 Douglas Blvd,, Roseville, CA, US

📖 Why this book? 📖

“Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever”

It’s movie award season 🏆 🎥 🍿 and NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour recommended this book in its “Books We Love: No Biz Like Showbiz” episode .

Nostalgic-Novembers: We read memoirs for the last three Novembers in a row. Now another “November to remember”

Published October 24, 2023

Hard to find a book? Suggest a title or use Zip Books at your local library.

💠 What can I expect? 💠

We will meet in-person in the community “Gather Room” at the back of the store.

💬 We catch up socially,
🧊 including a brief icebreaker in which we mention a book or author we recommend, and
🕡 at 6:30 we start our book discussion.

👜 WHAT DO I BRING? 👜

◾️ A snack or drink from Raley’s to share
◾️ $5 (cash or Venmo)
◾️ And you could bring your book 😄

✴️ Event Details ✴️

The $5 offsets Meetup fees. You can venmo me (https://venmo.com/u/Rebecca-Bon) or bring cash.

However❕We would never want you to miss a book club discussion because of the $5, so please message me if you have any concerns.

Thanks, and see you all soon!

📚 ** BOOK SUMMARY ** 📚

Once upon a time, if you wanted to know if a movie was worth seeing, you didn't check out Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB.

You asked whether Siskel & Ebert had given it "two thumbs up."

On a cold Saturday afternoon in 1975, two men (who had known each other for eight years before they'd ever exchanged a word) met for lunch in a Chicago pub. Gene Siskel was the film critic for the Chicago Tribune. Roger Ebert had recently won the Pulitzer Prize — the first ever awarded to a film critic — for his work at the Chicago Sun-Times. To say they despised each other was an understatement.

When they reluctantly agreed to collaborate on a new movie review show with PBS, there was at least as much sparring off-camera as on. No decision — from which films to cover to who would read the lead review to how to pronounce foreign titles — was made without conflict, but their often-antagonistic partnership (which later transformed into genuine friendship) made for great television. In the years that followed, their signature "Two thumbs up!" would become the most trusted critical brand in Hollywood.

In Opposable Thumbs, award-winning editor and film critic Matt Singer eavesdrops on their iconic balcony set, detailing their rise from making a few hundred dollars a week on local Chicago PBS to securing multimillion-dollar contracts for a syndicated series (a move that convinced a young local host named Oprah Winfrey to do the same). Their partnership was cut short when Gene Siskel passed away in February of 1999 after a battle with brain cancer that he'd kept secret from everyone outside his immediate family — including Roger Ebert, who never got to say goodbye to his longtime partner. But their influence on in the way we talk about (and think about) movies continues to this day.

Photographer/© ABC/Getty Images.

Wed, Nov 19 · 6:30 PM PST

MDTN November 2025 — Opposable Thumbs, by Matt Singer

Time Tested Books, 1114 21st St, Sacramento, CA, US

📖 Why this book? 📖

“Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever”

It’s movie award season 🏆 🎥 🍿 and NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour recommended this book in its “Books We Love: No Biz Like Showbiz” episode .

Nostalgic-Novembers: We read memoirs for the last three Novembers in a row. Now another “November to remember”

Published October 24, 2023

Hard to find a book? Suggest a title or use Zip Books at your local library.

💠 What can I expect? 💠

We will meet in-person after hours in Time Tested Books. Front door willl be unlocked, and staff will point the way.

💬 We catch up socially;
🧊 we do a brief icebreaker in which we mention a book or author we recommend,
📕 and then we start our book discussion at 7pm.

👜 WHAT DO I BRING? 👜

◾️A snack or drink to share
◾️$5 (cash or Venmo)
◾️And you could bring your book 😄

✴️ Event Details ✴️

The $5 is split between our access to this Meetup platform and our access to the meeting location.

You can venmo me (https://venmo.com/u/Rebecca-Bon) or bring cash.

However❕We would never want you to miss a book club discussion because of the $5, so please message me if you have any concerns.

Thanks, and see you all soon!

📚 ** BOOK SUMMARY ** 📚

Once upon a time, if you wanted to know if a movie was worth seeing, you didn't check out Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB.

You asked whether Siskel & Ebert had given it "two thumbs up."

On a cold Saturday afternoon in 1975, two men (who had known each other for eight years before they'd ever exchanged a word) met for lunch in a Chicago pub. Gene Siskel was the film critic for the Chicago Tribune. Roger Ebert had recently won the Pulitzer Prize — the first ever awarded to a film critic — for his work at the Chicago Sun-Times. To say they despised each other was an understatement.

When they reluctantly agreed to collaborate on a new movie review show with PBS, there was at least as much sparring off-camera as on. No decision — from which films to cover to who would read the lead review to how to pronounce foreign titles — was made without conflict, but their often-antagonistic partnership (which later transformed into genuine friendship) made for great television. In the years that followed, their signature "Two thumbs up!" would become the most trusted critical brand in Hollywood.

In Opposable Thumbs, award-winning editor and film critic Matt Singer eavesdrops on their iconic balcony set, detailing their rise from making a few hundred dollars a week on local Chicago PBS to securing multimillion-dollar contracts for a syndicated series (a move that convinced a young local host named Oprah Winfrey to do the same). Their partnership was cut short when Gene Siskel passed away in February of 1999 after a battle with brain cancer that he'd kept secret from everyone outside his immediate family — including Roger Ebert, who never got to say goodbye to his longtime partner. But their influence on in the way we talk about (and think about) movies continues to this day.

Photographer/© ABC/Getty Images.

Wed, Dec 3 · 6:00 PM PST

RSVL December 2025 — Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

Raley’s Gather Room, Douglas Blvd, 1915 Douglas Blvd,, Roseville, CA, US

📖 Why this book? 📖

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
New York Times Readers' Pick: Top 100
Books of the 21st Century
• An Oprah's Book Club Selection
• An Instant New York Times Bestseller
• An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller
• A #1 Washington Post Bestseller
• A New York Times ""Ten Best Books of the Year''

''Demon is a voice for the ages — akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield — only even more resilient." — Beth Macy, author of Dopesick

''May be the best novel of [the year]....
Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love." - Ron Charles, Washington Post
From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturity

Hard to find a book? Suggest a title or use Zip Books at your local library.

💠 What can I expect? 💠

We will meet in-person in the community “Gather Room” at the back of the store.

💬 We catch up socially,
🧊 including a brief icebreaker in which we mention a book or author we recommend, and
🕡 at 6:30 we start our book discussion.

👜 WHAT DO I BRING? 👜

◾️ A snack or drink from Raley’s to share
◾️ $5 (cash or Venmo)
◾️ And you could bring your book 😄

✴️ Event Details ✴️

The $5 offsets Meetup fees. You can venmo me (https://venmo.com/u/Rebecca-Bon) or bring cash.

However❕We would never want you to miss a book club discussion because of the $5, so please message me if you have any concerns.

Thanks, and see you all soon!

📚 ** BOOK SUMMARY ** 📚

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addic-tion, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society.

Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.