Catapult Book Club

The next meeting of The Catapult Book Club will come to order on the evening of Thursday, March 12th at 7pm.

The current selection is The Bear by Andrew Krivak.

“With artistry and grace... Krivak delivers a transcendent journey into a world where all living things—humans, animals, trees—coexist in magical balance, forever telling each other’s unique stories. This beautiful and elegant novel is a gem.” -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Lyrical... Gorgeous... Depicting the drama of [the girl’s] daily efforts to survive, The Bear demonstrates its kinship with such classic coming-of-age-in-the-wild tales as My Side of the Mountain and Island of the Blue Dolphins... Krivak’s serene and contemplative novel invites us to consider a vision of time as circular, of existence as grand and eternal beyond the grasp of individuals—and of a world able to outlive human destructiveness.” -Washington Post

I love a book that promises to lead you in a certain direction, only to have it completely surprise you mid-way through. The Bear did that for me - I thought I was reading a "straightforward" post-apocalyptic novel about a girl surviving alone in the wilderness... and it is that, for sure, but about a third of the way in it pivots ever so slightly and becomes something much bigger, beautiful, poignant and magical. Suspend your disbelief, friends. Maybe the natural world has more going on in it than we self-involved humans can comprehend. I loved and savored every single word - a book that by page count should have taken me a day to read, I spread out over a week, not wanting it to end.  -Seth