April 2008

Dear Book Clubbers,

Last night’s meeting at Jill’s to discuss the classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, was a huge success. I think the book receive 5 stars from just about everyone in attendance. We had a great turnout and welcomed new member, Diane Knight. The discussion of the book was excellent and we made good progress with tidying up the house keeping aspects of the club. As usual, the treats were delicious. Thanks Jill for doing such a great job of leading our book chat and for your awesome work on the blog and the meeting schedule.

Our next meeting is at 7:15 PM on Wednesday, June 4th at Sue Kellner’s. We will be reading Wicked by Gregory Maguire. Please don’t forget to give Sue a heads up if you are planning to attend. Snack members for that night will be Shirley, Sue Payne and Grace with Sarah helping out with wine. If anyone wants me to order the book for them from Amazon for $11.20, just let me know. It isn’t a super short read, so get going!

Following that, our summer meeting will be an author night to discuss Runaway Grandma by Ann McCauley (her pen name). The tentative date for that event is July 16th, but Jill will have to verify the author’s availability before that is written in stone. Also your hostess for the evening (that would be me) has to check with her sister-in-law regarding the timing of their visit this summer. I can order this book on Amazon for $14.95, but I am going to suggest that we hold off on that as well since Jill may be able to get us copies directly from the author. Stay tuned on all that.

Keeping on a six week schedule will take us to August 27th for the next meeting. The book for that meeting is going to be The Time Traveler’s Wife (Amazon $11.20) by Audrey Niffenegger. The location is still pending at this writing. After that we will read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Amazon $9.59) on 10/8 or thereabouts.

The biggest news is that we made a decision regarding how to streamline the book selection process so that we are not spending so much of our meeting time choosing books. This should allow us to focus on the book under discussion that night, the refreshments and socializing. Several members brought suggestions based on how other book clubs handle making their choices. After we hashed it all out, it was decided that we would have a meeting in the fall with the sole purpose of choosing the books for the year. Everyone would bring ideas and give a short synopsis to the group. Hopefully, they could also bring the actual book or a printout with some reviews or something for everyone to look at. After we heard a little about all the books, we would wander around looking at the books or reviews. Each of us would have the same number of pennies as the number of meetings we have in a year. We would put our pennies down on the books which most appealed to us, and the books with the most pennies (top 7 or so) would make the list for the upcoming year. We would continue to choose the next co-ed book at the co-ed meeting and would remain open and flexible in the event that a special opportunity such as an author night or a timely “must read” came up. We have tentatively picked September 10th as the night for this selection process. We are thinking of having the meeting at the pool shelter and making it a wine and cheese party as well. As you read above, we have picked books up through early October, so we would start with the new way after that.

Phew, that was a lot to say. If you have any questions about all of this…check our trusty blog at www.crbc.blogspot.com or call me.

Jan