Book Club Gift Exchange

During our December 8th get together we will be doing a White Elephant Gift Exchange. Bring a regifted, silly or otherwise wrapped package for our 3rd lively gift exchange!

Origin
The name "White elephant" originates from an old Burmese cultural reference to the value of an albino elephant, which is considered sacred and must be well taken care of, despite the financial burden that it may bring to its owner. Therefore, the gifts exchanged may be large, delicate and/or utterly pointless for the recipient (e.g., a huge stuffed animal for someone who lives in a small apartment).

Notes from November

We had a rich discussion trying to figure out why we were all so engaged in this depressing book about an old man in Norway who moves to a cabin on a lake. Turns out many of us had different interpretations on what happened in the book and differing levels of difficulty recalling plot facts and inferences. But, this was a very well-written book...steeped with all the mind blowing stuff that you learned about in A.P. English class...Motifs, themes... I don't think we really reached consensus on the main message or purpose of the book, but its definitely one to reread.

The food can pretty much be summarized with two words: Pizza & Desserts. It was a sweet lovers paradise - brownies, chocolate fudge pie, krumkake (Norwegian cookies)...I think I'm forgetting something.

Shelley was the hostess this time and I think we'd vote her living room furniture as the most comfy furniture owned by our group. She had quite an eclectic assortment of book nominations for us...

One from her mom, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon, about the emotional world of farm animals. One from her friend who works on Mauna Kea at an observatory, called Space.

(these two didn't make it through the first voting round).

Quote of the Night:

"Those are not exactly my favorite animals."
- Melissa, in response to the introductory blurb of The Pig Who Sang to the Moon

The final nominees were:

1. Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball


2. Welcome to My Country by Lauren Slater


3. The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard

And the winner was:

Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball

Next Book Club:

December 8th at 6:30

Meredith's House

Sometime in October Book Club

The blog is a little behind! Sorry everyone!

Before I move on to the most recent Book Club fun, here is a reminder about our October gathering...

Miss (almost Mrs.) Melissa hosted. The food was so so good. Melissa made polenta rounds and Rebecca made fresh cornbread with honey butter. Yummers.

There wasn't too much indepth discussion about But Enough About Me. The consensus was that it was a fun read and they we adored her father that worked at Sears.

Melissa had a stack of good nominations but then a couple of us rabble-rousers requested that The Time Traveller's Wife get put back in (Melissa has been trying to get the group to read this book since we started meeting 3 years ago!).

Guess what won - Time Traveller's Wife!!

What's The What, Night in Review

It was a lovely, beautiful morning at Kim's house in Volcano.

Food

Special Guests

Books

Shelley's Toes

The Sexy Readers

Ode to But Enough About Me

Check out Jancee Dunn's Blog.

What Is the What

I'm only half way through but I'm already haunted by Valentino's story. If you haven't started reading this book, or you are thinking about skipping it...you are missing out!

Kim mentioned she saw an interview with Valentino on the web. I found it and wanted to share it with the Readers...

Click on this to view his website.

To listen to the NPR interview click here.

Here is the UTube Video.

August 19th - Night in Review

As we gathered at Vicki's for book club, I think I wasn't the only one who was excited that we would be discussing such a terrific book - The Book Thief. It was well written, thought provoking, creative, great characters, and educational. Meredith is going to be teaching it to her class of talented and gifted students. What lucky kiddos. The characters of Rosa and Hans Huberman, Max, and Rudy will stay with us. There were mixed thoughts about how the book ended, but we all admitted to wishing that Liesel had been able to give Rudy his long awaited kiss...

We munched on pizza and sipped a combo of Sangria and Chardonnay. (FYI for future creative potluckers, other than myself the group does not seem to be a fan of blue cheese.) There was no hummus at this month's meeting.

Vicki was dying for us to go outside for the breeze, but we were all so busy chatting about the book (some of us also were chatting about What's the What, another goodie!).

But after our yummy angel food cake with fresh blueberries (Melissa stepped up in Tahnee's place with a refreshing and light dessert), we finally went outside and began to discuss the book (and member) nominations.

Our Decisions

New members: Katie (nominated by Meredith) and Rebecca (nominated by Emily). These were no brainers compared to selecting the next book.

October's book: But Enough About Me by Jancee Dunn. We decided we needed something a big fluffy after The Book Thief and What's the What!

Nominated by not chosen:

• The Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingslover



• The River by Alice Hoffman



• An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg (also made into a movie starring JLo)



• The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch



• A book nominated by Kim that we decided to call Omar Mysteries.
  

Next Book Club: Sunday, September 14th at 11:00, in Volcano at Kim's