October and November

In October, we went to see the movie adaptation of Angie Thomas's book The Hate U Give. And boy, did we all like this movie! I'd say it had us on the edge of our seats; but the truth of the matter is we were pulled back in our seats, as if we were trying to pull away from the tension on the screen. But the movie also made us laugh, we liked the family dynamic, and we thought the acting was terrific. Most of all the movie did what the movie and the book are meant to do - it made us think. It opened some eyes.

Unfortunately, we didn't plan ahead to have a drink in the theaters bar after the movie so we would have had a chance to sit down and talk about it. We definitely recommend seeing this movie; and going with a book club is a great idea - just make sure you plan to have time to talk about it.

This month we read The Wangs Versus The World. Linda pointed out that the movie from October and the book from this month give our group of white suburban middle-aged women great glimpses into other cultures. Ann was not a fan of the book; she felt like she would have gotten more out of the book if she had a great knowledge of Chinese culture and history. But the rest of us did enjoy it.

I'd tell you more about our discuss about this book except that we didn't much talk about it. Having just come off an election (in which one of our members was running for office and another had worked election day), we had a lot to talk about regarding that. Plus, you know, the usual catching up with each other, especially since we didn't get much of a chance to talk to each other in October.

Next month we aren't reading a book so that we all have more time to enjoy our families and friends over the holidays. Or try to be less stressed at least. We will meet and award prizes to the people with the most points earned this year and do a couple of other fun things.

September - Killers of the Flower Moon

Well, this month we figured out that switching books only a couple of weeks before the meeting only works if people can get the book from the library. Which, surprisingly, you couldn't do with this book even though it's been out for almost a year and a half. Still, half of those of us who could make the meeting had at least read some of it.

We had to force ourselves to get on track and talk about the book for a while, even so. Those of us who read the book liked it, in no small part because we liked having our eyes opened to something we'd been unaware of before. Cheryl had heard about what had happened to the Osage before - NPR, PBS, one of those places. Even being a room full of women who have their eyes open to the corruption in government and the justice system, we still found the level of corruption at this time and in this place astonishing. While we didn't talk as much about the book as we might have, I think we would all recommend the book.

The book references about two dozen murders but Mary Beth said that when she looked this up, there were references to there having been as many as sixty murders of the Osage people. Which makes it all the more amazing that the government was content to solve about a half dozen cases and call it good.

Now we're all wondering how many more stories like this are out there waiting to be found and told.

August - Homegoing

Well, this one sure got mixed reviews. Ann, Lisa W, and Mary were disappointed in the book, wondering what had been the point. Some of that was answered when we talked over the publisher's questions (more on that later!). Lisa S, on the other hand, really enjoyed the book, awed by how Gyasi had encapsulated all of the African experience into one book.

About those publisher's questions - even after a lot of editing to make them shorter, these were seriously essay questions! None of that "who was your favorite character?" stuff for this book. Lesson learned - more editing if we ever come across this kind of thing again. They were good questions - but every question was at least three questions.

Maybe the toughest part of talking about this book is keeping track of who is who and which side of the family tree they come down on. For other book clubs, I'd seriously recommend a copy of the family tree at the front of the back be blown up and put up for reference - I'd even suggest a couple of quick notes about each character be added. Our conversation would have been much smoother if we wouldn't have had to keep reminding ourselves of which character a question was referring to.

We did spend a fair amount of time talking about the book but it was an effort to keep things on track.

In the end, even with all of those questions, one of the lessons we learned from this book is that sometimes there are no easy answers...and sometimes there isn't an answer at all.

July

Now here's a book that brought out all kinds of feelings among the group! Ann loved it; Nancy was at the other end of the spectrum. When the book was selected, it was understood to be a book about a dysfunctional family. What a surprise to find out that  incest was at the center of the storyline!


As uncomfortable at that made all of us, we had no problem talking about the way Engel uses it in the book. We talked about whether or not the incestuous relationships were believable, the reality of incest in people's lives, and the fallout for the victims.

The publisher didn't include discussion questions for the book, but Lisa prepared some based on posted reviews of the book and interviews with Engel. In fact, though, we had no problem talking about the book at all - we talked about this book more than we've talked about most other books. Curiously, even though we shot holes in a lot of the plot points, we all had an appreciation of the way Engel structured the book, the way she wrote about small town, Midwestern life, and the main character, Lane.

I don't know that we would recommend the book to other book clubs. Given the subject matter, it would certainly be something that might be a trigger for some people.

Because the book is set in Kansas, we enjoyed several corn dishes and Kansas beer. Nancy even made cookies with nuts, because the grandfather in the book is "nuts," she said!

Time To Fire Up Your Competitive Spirit and Pull Out Your Scorecards!

Now, I know you all love our book club but life gets in the way. How about I give you all a little incentive to, oh say, read the book? Come to the meetings? Can I tempt you with some prizes and a little competition?

Starting in July, you'll have a chance to earn points in several different ways. At our December meeting, prizes will be awarded. The top two point totals will win bookish prizes (and by "bookish," I might mean a bottle of wine to drink while you read a book!) and the person with the least points will win a lovely white elephant gift (I might have more fun with this prize than the other two!).

Here's how you can earn points:

• Finish the book - 10 points
• Host a meeting - 10 points
• Attending a meeting - 5 points
• Organize a book-related, non-meeting event - 5 points
• Attend a non-meeting event (seeing an author, seeing a book-related movie, go to a play, do an activity you were inspired to do because of a book) - 3 points (an extra point if you've gone with book club friends)
• Introduce a new member - 3 points
• Recommend a book 1 point (2 points if your book is added to our reading list)
• Submit a question regarding the book - 1 point 

If you can't come to the meeting, but have finished the book or if you've gone to a non-meeting event that qualifies, please let me know by email so I can add your points. There are a lot of movies come out this year that are based on books, so there will be a lot of opportunities to earn points just by going to the movies! I'll try to be better about keeping the calendar updated with bookish events on the website (http://omahabookwormsbookclub.blogspot.com). Let me know if you think of any other ways we could earn points!

**Sunday, July 15th is your first chance to earn points - please see Linda's email!**

June

We had a good turnout last night for our discussion of Little Fires Everywhere and a good discussion. We tried something new this month. Instead of just having a list of questions, we took drew rounds of questions from a basket. Not only did that put each person with some questions they had to answer but holding that question in your hand was a good reminder that we still had book discussion to continue with when we got off track.

We largely stuck to the publisher's questions for the book, although they were tweaked some and we didn't include all of them. This allowed us to talk about character development, the different kinds of mothers, the setting of the book and how it impacted what the characters did. We spent a lot of time talking about the open-ended questions Ng left for readers to consider. A lot of our discussion had to do with surrogacy: the way it was accomplished here, the difference it might make if neither of the prospective parents were a biological parent, and whether or not we would be able to carry a baby as a surrogate. We also spent a lot of time talking about adoption, the role race plays in adoption, and what happens when a birth parent decides they want their child back. We had to remind ourselves frequently that Ng has set this book twenty years in the past and then we worked to remember what the world was like at that time.

Those of us who had read the book enjoyed it and we would definitely recommend it for other book clubs. There were enjoy wider topics discussed in this book, too, so that those who hadn't read the book could also jump into the conversation.

Thanks to Ann for hosting and all of the yummies and to Lisa W. for sharing books!

April and May

April's turnout was the biggest turnout we've had in a long time and everyone there had even read the book. Huzzah! Apparently we need Paulette Jiles to start writing books faster? Of course, this was the only meeting I've missed in a year; fortunately, I was able to call in to talk to everyone about New Of The World. It was a great discussion. We talked about the writing, the characters, what we were expecting to have happen as we were reading (some of us were certain of a happily-ever-after and some of us were expecting the worst). This one was definitely a hit with the club, in no small part because we all really liked the relationship between the main characters. Plus, there were plenty of surprises, new things to think about (none of us had ever heard of traveling news readers), and we found a link to the cowboys in the story.

In May, we had the inverse - only three of us were able to make the meeting (sorry, Mary Beth but thanks for the great spread). Luckily, we'd all read the book so we had a good time talking about the book, what we had expected versus what we got, and how it seemed to tie into current events. We'd all definitely recommend The Women In The Castle for book clubs in no small part because of the way the rise of the Nazi party seems to parallel much of what we seeing now regarding nationalism. We found the ladies interesting and thought Shattuck had done a good job crafting unique individuals of each of them. We all remarked that this book touched on a part of the World War II era that we had not previously read anything about and it was interesting to see how the disparate factions began having to live with each other again.

Wonder what kind of a group we'll end up in June now that summer travels have begun? We should have a lot to talk about again with Little Fires Everywhere!

February and March

 And, just like that, we're back to having fairly small meetings with even fewer people having read the book. I'll grant you that Their Eyes Were Watching God was much more of a challenge than anticipated - the dialect was work to get through. But Alice I Have Been wasn't a tough read at all and both of the past couple of books did have quite a lot to talk about.

For example, Ann and I came away from Alice I Have Been with very different impressions about Melanie Benjamin's take on Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll. Then there's always the discussion with historical fiction about what was true and what wasn't. With Their Eyes Were Watching God Ann asked why the book was considered a classic and so we talked about that.

I still want to read books and have people to talk to about them.

Here's what I'm proposing. Going forward, for those who have read the book and want to discuss it, the meetings will start at 7 p.m. At 7:30 p.m., anyone else who's available to join us is more than welcome to join us so that we can catch up with each other and enjoy the friendships we've made. Let me know what you think!

January - Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal

We kicked off the new year with a great turnout, great food, and, maybe, the greatest number of people to finish the book in ten years! We were excited to have Diana stop by, if only for a few minutes, so that we could remember what she looks like and encourage her as she continues working on her PhD and to welcome Mary Beth to the group. At least, I hope we didn't scare her off!

Kitchens of the Great Midwest was, Ann pointed out, not really a book about kitchens, which she had been expecting. And Lisa S pointed out that music played almost as big a role as food; you could spend a lot of time putting together a playlist to listen to as you read this book.

Mary Beth was let down by the ending of the book but we all agreed that most of the stories in the book ended without really ending. Linda took us through the book so we could revisit each of the endings which turned out to be a great way to pick up on some things that came back up at the end of the book, including characters that reappeared and the way that Stradal had used each of the chapters names (food names) in the final menu of the book.

We were all heartbroken by the ending of the first story, which totally put us off of what we thought the book was going to be about. We loved the ending of the next chapter - revenge is best served with pepper oil, apparently! We got a kick out of Eva and her cousin hustling men who think they can handle the hottest foods (girl power!). In the fourth story, Walleye, Lisa was reminded of Rainbow Rowell's book, Eleanor and Park. Pat Prager's big chapter got us talking about the spectrum of foodies from great home cooks to the pretentious foodies that ruin Pat's big shot. Or did they? They reminded Cheryl of the great scene in Portlandia where the characters are so invested in knowing the background of the chicken that they are about to eat that they are whisked off to the farm where it was raised.

This was definitely a great choice for a book club selection - we could easily have talked about it much longer and, for the most part, everyone enjoyed it.

As much as we all like to eat and like good food, none of us could imagine spending as much as the characters did for the final dinner in the book, especially considering they would all have left still hungry!

You Knew I Was Going To Do This, Right?

I hope you haven't read too far ahead (I'm looking at you, Ann!), because I've changed the book for March. Instead of Colm Toibin's Nora Webster, we will be reading Melanie Benjamin's Alice I Have Been. 

This is the second year I've  bumped Nora Webster off the list. Sorry, Nora, but it doesn't look like it's going to work out between us!