Cozy night
DisciplineBook club questions, food & host guide
Larissa Pham
Picked by
TeaTime Book Club
TeaTime Book Club
A cozy book club night for Discipline by Larissa Pham. Includes 8 spoiler-free discussion questions, food and drink pairings, a playlist, and a host guide, ready to print and share.
A small, trusting club that likes memoir and personal essays and does not mind the conversation getting a little soft-hearted.
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Larissa Pham's essay collection braids art, desire, grief, and the long work of healing into prose that feels like a letter from a close friend. It is short enough to finish in a weekend and generous enough to keep a room talking all night.
Why it works for clubs
- Essays mean everyone can arrive with a favorite page instead of a plot summary
- It moves between art, intimacy, and recovery, so people enter from whatever door they need
- The confessional voice invites personal stories without requiring anyone to perform expertise
- Short pieces make it easy to read one aloud and let the room sit with it
Reading level
Moderate
Warm-up questions
- 1 Where did you do most of your reading for this one, and did the book ask for a particular kind of quiet?
- 2 Pham writes so closely about looking at art. Is there one painting, song, or photograph you keep returning to the way she returns to hers?
Digging in
- 1 The title promises discipline, but the book keeps finding tenderness inside it. Did that reframing comfort you at all, or did it sting a little?
- 2 This is a book about wanting things badly. What did it stir up in you about your own appetites, and were you glad to feel it?
- 3 Pham treats attention as a form of love. Did reading her pay closer attention change how you looked at anything in your own week?
- 4 The essays move between art, friendship, and solitude. Which of those three felt most like company to you while you read?
Going deep
- 1 Pham is writing about healing while it is still unfinished. Did sitting with something unresolved feel generous to you, or did part of you want her to tie it off?
- 2 By the final pages, what had the book softened in you that you did not expect to be softened? Share only as much as you want to.
On the table
A big pot of congee with soft-boiled eggs, scallions, chili oil, and crispy shallots
Gentle, restorative food that nods to Pham's Vietnamese American table and to a book about being cared for while you mend. Simmer it ahead and let people spoon their own bowls.
Buttered toast board with honey, flaky salt, and stone fruit jam
The simplest comfort there is, and a quiet mirror of the book's attention to small sensory pleasures. Zero stress, endlessly refillable.
Warm pandan or coconut sheet cake, cut into squares
Soft, fragrant, a little indulgent, the dessert equivalent of being told it is okay to rest. Bake the day before.
To sip
Jasmine or chrysanthemum tea in a pot kept hot all night
No alcohol
Floral and clean, the drink of long slow talking. Put mugs out and let people pour for each other.
Vietnamese coffee, iced or hot, with condensed milk
No alcohol
For a book written in the key of late-night thinking and sustained attention. Offer decaf if your club runs late.
Warm honey whiskey with lemon and a strip of ginger
A nightcap for a book about sitting with ache. Keep the pour small and the mug large.
Hushed and reverb-soft, the sound of a lamp-lit room where someone is telling you the truth.
Tap a track to play it. Full songs play when you're signed into Spotify.
Run of show
7:00
Soft landing
Lamps on, overheads off. Congee warm on the stove, teapot full. No agenda for twenty minutes.
7:20
Bowls and bookmarks
Everyone fills a bowl and takes a bookmark. Go around with the first warm-up question while people eat.
7:45
Read one page aloud
Invite anyone who dog-eared something to read it. Resist commenting right away, just let a few passages sit in the room.
8:00
The main conversation
Work through the theme questions loosely. Let silence happen, this book earns it.
8:40
Cake, coffee, and the deep end
Bring out the sheet cake and the Vietnamese coffee, then take the two deeper questions. Make it explicit that passing is fine.
9:15
Trivia, scorecards, nightcap
Light trivia round, fill out scorecards together, pour small hot whiskeys for anyone staying. Let people drift out whenever.
Host tips
- Say out loud at the start that nobody has to share anything personal. The book invites confession, and permission to pass is what makes honest talk possible.
- Cook everything the day before. Congee and sheet cake both improve overnight and you want your hands free to host, not stir.
- Keep a stack of sticky notes by the door so people can flag passages on arrival. It gives shy readers an easy way in.
You're invited
Come Be Gentle With Us
We are reading Larissa Pham's Discipline, a slim book about art, wanting, and healing slowly. Bring your dog-eared pages, wear something soft, there will be congee and cake and a very warm teapot.
Trivia
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1
What is the full title of the book under discussion?Answer: Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy. The night's theme centers on the Discipline essay within it.
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2
What literary form is the book written in?Answer: The personal or lyric essay, collected as a book-length work of nonfiction.
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3
In what year was the collection published?Answer: 2021.
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4
Which American contemporary artist, known for text-based light and sculptural works, appears among the artists Pham writes about?Answer: Louise Bourgeois is among the artists she engages with in the collection.
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5
Pham has also published a work of short fiction. What is its title?Answer: Fantasian, a novella.
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6
What two subjects does the book's subtitle pair together?Answer: Art and intimacy.
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7
Besides books, where has Pham's criticism and essay work appeared?Answer: Publications including The Nation, The Paris Review Daily, and Guernica, among other outlets.
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8
Which broad theme runs alongside art-looking throughout the collection: adventure travel, legal history, or desire and healing?Answer: Desire and healing.
Bookmarks
Cozy night
Soft attention
Look long enough and the looking becomes a kind of love.
Discipline
Cozy night
Tender ache
Some wanting is just the heart keeping itself warm.
Discipline
Cozy night
Gentle patience
Healing is slow on purpose. Sit down. Stay awhile.
Discipline
Rate the book
Comfort (did it hold you?)
Honesty
Sentences you reread
How seen you felt
Would you lend it to a friend?
One word for how this book left you:
The page I keep thinking about:
Something it made me want to look at more closely:
Print pack
- Question cards on soft cardstock, one per person, so the quiet readers can pick instead of being called on
- Three printable bookmarks, perforated so guests can take one home
- Cozy scorecards with space for a favorite page number
- Place cards that double as sticky-note flags for passages
- A small single-page menu card listing the congee toppings and the teas on offer
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