Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
We all got a letter from cfk, and here it is:
In case you can’t decipher that on your phone or screen, here's what cfk wrote:
Dear Friends,
I am doing therapy at home. Before my accident I was exhausted and I think 14 years is enough. I would like another book lover or group to have the Wed. slot. Please make up a new name (of course you can use Bookchat) so I can keep Bookflurries as mine. This is not farewell as I will drop by when I can for a few minutes. It will be a while before I am back on the computer.
Best wishes & hugs from cfk.
It was the best of news, it was the worst of news: cfk keeps getting better, and wrote us a letter; but she is retiring from writing weekly Bookflurries diaries (which has been, I think, the best series in all of DKos). She will still be around Readers & Book Lovers, and Daily Kos, but we will see less of her, and her peerless hosting. And who will generously mail us gift books? We may all just have to trudge to our local libraries. Which is also a good thing. So, we’re living through endings and beginnings and changes. It would be so pleasant if life just slowed down a bit. But not until late January, once we have a sane, progressive government. Most of all, I am so glad that cfk is in good health and spirits.
Let’s take a moment to appreciate all that cfk has accomplished here. Her first Bookflurries was 14 years ago. Since then she’s written 433 Bookflurries, 499 Readers & Book Lovers diaries, and 715 diaries tagged with #Books. She’s met thousands of kossacks, become our friend, introduced us to each other — and, as regular Bookflurriers know, she’s made all of our bookshelves multiply and diversify, and she’s extended our To Be Read lists from here to Kingdom Come. We have shared ourselves and our humanity. There has always been, for fourteen years now, a place here on DKos that felt like home. And she has furnished our imaginations, and shown us far horizons. My life is better and larger, because of all I’ve discovered in these Wednesday night salons. Thank You, cfk. There will always be a warm hearth in my heart for you, and you are forever invited to visit there.
I know some of you will write below about what Bookflurries has meant to you over the years. For myself, it was the first R&BLers diary I ever commented in (after I first met cfk in one of Meteor Blades’ Open Threads for Night Owls and Early Birds, in July of ‘08). I doubt I would have ended up making my home in this group, if not for cfk. And I might well have left DKos long ago, because the pie and clickbait in the reclist wear on me, whereas R&BLers has almost always offered kinder and more substantial conversations. There are more fine friends in my life and fine books on my shelves, because I happened upon a poll cfk wrote, and it beguiled me.
As for what Bookflurries has meant to cfk, well, here are her own words:
Ten years ago, on June 7, 2005, I joined Daily Kos after lurking for a few months. A year and a bit later, I started publishing Bookflurries. I have been thinking about why.
Why I write my Bookflurries diaries:
1. To affirm the importance of reading
2. To share good books and learn about others
3. To encourage authors
4. To learn new things in discussions of books
5. To give people an oasis to come to where they can relax and chat
6. To remember older books and classics of various genres
7. To mention poems, plays, movies, music and quotations
8. To be with people who like to read, travel, and write
Tonight, I want to feature some books that have been written by Daily Kos writers in the last few months. Congratulations to them!
Our kind and thoughtful hostess then boosted books by kossacks James R. Wells (The Great Symmetry), Kelly McCullough (Darkened Blade), David Akadjian (The Little Book of Revolution: A Distributive Strategy for Democracy), melpomene1 (Wish I Might), MT Spaces (The Great Salt Lake Mime Saga and Amsterdam's Festival of Fools), Robert W. Fuller (Belonging: A Memoir), Lenny Flank (Hidden History 3), and Sensible Shoes (Jinx’s Fire).
Thank you also to all the Readers & Book Lovers who have been pitching in and helping out here since August, as well as all of you dear readers and commenters, bringing sugar and spice and a hundred viewpoints to keep these conversations interesting and informative.
Pico has been keeping us updated on cfk’s accident and recovery, starting with his Bookflurries-Bookchat: brief hiatus. Then I wrote my paean, Bookflurries-Bookchat: Why I Love cfk. Dumbo shared enchanting memories of his childhood in Bookflurries-Bookchat: Have a Coke and a Smile. Emmet brought her sparkling wit in Bookflurries-Bookchat: Nonfiction? Really?. Bonetti warned against reading while cycling, and asked where we’d rather do it, in Bookflurries-Bookchat: Making Space to Read. Youffraita shared some of her favorite characters in Bookflurries-Bookchat: Terry Pratchett's Witches. Which brings us up to last week, when Tara the Antisocial Social Worker showed us a cornucopia of alternate worlds in Bookflurries: Utopias and Dystopias. Everyone except me followed cfk’s amiable example, and responded to all the guests in their Bookflurries. Well done, each and every one.
If Readers & Book Lovers is a mighty oak, gathering and sheltering us all (which, in this metaphor, it assuredly is), then cfk is the deepest root, nourishing and sustaining us. Of course, she will still be among us, once she’s limber enough to easily reach her computer again. But we will be missing Wednesday evening Bookflurries, from her own hands.
I am loathe to relinquish our spirit of communion here. We have many fine diary series at R&BLers, but this has long been the friendliest, attracting the broadest company. So I have a radical proposal, which I will expound on at greater length next Wednesday. In brief, I’d like us to try a group-based Bookchat, where we (almost) all pitch in to write diaries. R&BLers has 274 members. I plan to kosmail each of our members (well, not those who have left DKos), inviting you all to contribute to our cooperative salon. If I can get a fifth of R&BLers to agree, that will add up to more than a year of Wednesdays. There are so many R&BLers who I know, from your comments, have splendid book diaries in you, just waiting to be shaped and shared. This expansive teamwork will get us all better acquainted, and allow every individual to add to R&BLers just what they think it could use a little more of. Still, we must cultivate our garden — and it will be a more joyful adventure if we all do it together.
Tonight, many of us will be engrossed by Kamala vs. that sanctimonious toady. My proposal will require discussion in all directions, to hammer into workable shape. So let’s all meet again, and debate my hypothesis next Wednesday. For the rest of this fall, I’d like to return Bookflurries to cfk, and (after next week) give Bookchat a hiatus until 2021. We have the most awesome and horrible election of our lifetimes to fight through, then we’ll all need to drink a bathtub full of gin decompress, and find a way to navigate our biggest family holidays while defending against plague season. So January will be a better time for beginnings. Please come back in a week, so we can talk all about my radical brainstorm. Or kosmail me before then, if you have ideas you’re eager to share.