Book for January

My Antonia by Willa Cather
Projected meeting date: January 10th or 17th
Hostess:  Danielle
Location: TBD

November Meeting

What a great November meeting that we had!  We enjoyed a wonderful discussion, beverages and just a bit of chocolate.  Everyone must be trying to be "good" on the nutrition front.  The verdict on Gone With the Wind was that it must have been a great book if we wanted to keep reading even if we kind of despised the main character.  So, do you think that Rhett and Scarlett would have gotten together if Margaret Mitchell hadn't been hit by a taxi cab?  Danielle brought some supplemental info regarding slavery and freed slaves from an accurate historical perspective.  I look forward to reading that as well.

Discussion ranged from our book selection to read (and planned reading) book series.  We even branched into celebrities, the Twilight series, the Hunger Games series, Nick Cage and Travolta movies, racism, the Civil War, the Duggars, and spiritual issues.  I enjoyed stretching my brain :)  Our group recommends these series: Stephanie Plumb series (One for the Money, Two for the Dough, etc) by Janet Evanovich and The Books of Bayern series a teen series by Shannon Hale (also Shannon wrote two books for adults that Maren recommends as well). 

This was a wonderful start to our "year of classics."

Date: November 2011
Location:  Panera Bread, Spring
Attendees: Stacey, Danielle, Geran, Jill, and Erin (we really missed Aimee, Daicia, Ashley, Rubi, and Betty)
Text: Gone With the Wind ~ Margaret Mitchell
Chocolate: Jill provided a variety of chocolate selection. I enjoyed a fabulous brownie with icing.  Thanks Jill!

Neglect

Poor, poor blog.  This space of the web has been so neglected!  We have continued to read and meet, but I have neglected to document our literary path.  This month we are reading:

This book has been a bit challenging for me to begin reading, but after an encouraging email from Stacey, I dove in again and I’m treading water nicely.  The writing is almost lyrical and the imagery is addictive.  I’m excited to conquer this book.  It is a book I would have never picked for myself, but isn’t that the point of a book club?  We are looking to expand our horizons.  I will finish this by the end of the month.  I will!

We have had a great journey together over the last year in our theme of “love.”  For our new year, we will go a little different direction.  I will be presenting our group with a list of classic novels recommended by Gladys Hunt.  She is a great anthologist (is that a word?)  with a biblical world view.  Not that all the novels she recommends are “Christian,” but she does view the world through that lens, so we can benefit from her insight.  My plan is that I will print out a master list of her recommended novels (30+, hopefully), and the hostess for each meeting will select our reading for the following meeting. 

For example, (I’m unsure of who our next hostess is…Rubi or Stacey) our hostess for August will be given the list in advance and when we meet at the end of the month, our hostess will present her selection.  My hope is to give you all a list of recommended classic novels with our theme for this year becoming “classics.”  As always, this book club is a work in progress, so if it is a miserable failure, we will revamp as we go.

I hope to see you all in a few weeks so we can discuss Here Be Dragons!  Look for an email soon from me or our hostess defining time, date, and location.  Happy Reading!

Books for February

That's right!  We have 2 books for February.

Projected meeting date: February 8th or 15th
Hostess: Ashley
Location: TBD  (Probably Ashley's house, but she'll let us know.)

December Meeting

We had a small, but lively, group at our December meeting.  We were missing some of our favorite people, but we filled the void with pasta and chocolate. 

Date: December 2010
Location:  Lasagna House III
Attendees: Aimee, Stacey, Daicia, Jenn, Ashley, Jill and Erin  (we really missed Debbie and Rubi!)
Text: The Scent of Rain and Lightning ~ Nancy Pickard
Chocolate: Jill brought a fantastic chocolate cake.  I don't remember the name of it, but it had something like 6 kinds of chocolate in it.  Fabulous!