November/December 2007

December 11, 2007

Dear Book Clubbers,

Sorry it has taken me so long to get the newsletter out. Those of you who were there know that we had a really lively discussion of The Road. Love it or hate it, the book seemed to generate some strong feelings in just about everyone, so that made for an interesting meeting. We did hash out the co-ed book club choice for next year which will be Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. This comes well recommended not only from within our group, but also from my son-in-laws’ mom, who reads a ton. Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth was a close second, largely because of its overwhelming length (pushing 1,000 pages).

The first meeting of 2008 will be at 7:15 PM on Wednesday, January 16th at Ann’s house. The selection for that night will be Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I can order that book for any who want it from Amazon. Unfortunately, the trade paperback size that is available with my free shipping deal is $11.55. You may recall that I am not going to be there that night and will be gone until early March. One suggestion that was made is to select Pillars of the Earth as our next book after that and allow a good stretch of time in between…until perhaps early to mid March. That would give everyone a big thick book to get into for the winter. You guys decide at the meeting. If we picked volunteers to bring “snack” that night, I did not write it down…or I did and I lost it. Please let Ann know if you are coming and a couple people should offer to bring a treat.

The other suggestion that has been raised is to lock the night of book club in to the same week every month. That would make it so all could plan on the second Wednesday of the month (for example) as being book club night. The drawback I see to that is that we had originally thought that 4 weeks was a little quick to get a book read and still have time to read other things as well. I think going 8 weeks between meetings would be a little too long. Again, you all can discuss it in January.

On a personal note, thank you all for the help in getting the house back in ship shape prior to Rob’s surgery the day after book club. The surgery went fine and Rob has been recuperating well. Thanks also to all of you for the well wishes, offers of “guy job” help and everything else that you have done. What a great community we live in! I better get back to my holiday preparations before Rob rings his bell to be waited on.

Happy Holidays,
Jan

PS: Someone left their copy of The Road on our stairs. Please let me know so I can get it back to you.