Jenna Bush Hager’s latest Today show book club pick is Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures.
Hager made the announcement on the morning show, saying Van Pelt’s book “is filled with love, humor, and it demonstrates the power and the beauty of unexpected friendships.”
Van Pelt’s debut novel, which is scheduled for publication on Tuesday by Ecco, follows Tova, a woman who befriends Marcellus, an octopus at the aquarium where she works as a custodian. Marcellus is determined to help Tova figure out what happened to her son, who disappeared on a boat three decades earlier. A critic for Kirkus called the book “a charming, warmhearted read.”
“I can’t wait for this creative, feel-good story to surprise and delight the Read With Jenna book club this May,” Hager said. “Not since Life of Pi have I found a book with such creativity and such a strong voice.”
Van Pelt told the Today show that she came up with the idea for the book after watching a video of an octopus trying to escape from its enclosure in an aquarium.
“It was just so fascinating to watch,” she said. “I couldn’t let go of the idea that there was a character in there. Sometime later, when I was in a writing workshop, I got a prompt to write from an unexpected point of view. That’s when Marcellus kind of popped into my mind.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
