February and March

Playing catch up - completely forgot to update the last two months! 

In February we read Annie Spence's Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak In The Stacks, which fit our theme for February of love because it's a series of love letters to books and libraries. It was not a big hit and initially posed some difficulty in figuring out how to discuss it. But a pop quiz got us talking about a lot of the different books that Spence talked about, a lot of the books we've read, and brought out some really fun stories from members. 

In March we read Colm Toibin's Nora Webster. Only four of us could make the meeting and only two of us had finished the book but we still managed to have a decent discussion about a book that none of us loved. It's a slow mover and we weren't entirely sure what Toibin's point was. The best part of there only being four of us was that we could sit around Cheryl's kitchen table and nosh and talk. But the best part of the evening was Mary Beth's Irish jokes which she tells with a fantastic Irish accent. 

Can't say that we can recommend either of these books for book clubs, although Nora Webster might have made for better discussion if we had all read it or if there had been more of us to talk about it so that we might have gotten other opinions. 

 

January - The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

For 2022, every book will represent a theme of the month. January is about new beginnings and no one in literature may have had more new beginnings than Addie LaRue. This is a long book but most of us were able to finish it. It was all love and roses for everyone (although some did love it) but it certainly gave us plenty to talk about. For this book, we divided into teams and each team took turns having players pick A or B questions. A questions were worth more but harder to answer and almost everyone picked them. In the end, it came down to a tie, which meant is was just like the show Whose Line Is It Anyway, where the points don't matter. 

This one had us talking about religion, leaving a mark on the world, morality, and what we would give up for love. It was a rare fantasy book for our club which is proof that it's good to break out of routine now and again. 

Sadly, we're back to Zoom meetings, with CoVid numbers up again, which works ok for book discussions but makes chatting with each other harder. Thanks to Linda for getting the meeting set up again. 

December 2021

December was party time - no pressure to read something with everything else going on this month. As we did last year, we exchanged blind date books and everyone of us came out of it with a new-to-us book that we were eager to read given by someone who enjoyed the books themselves. Some of us are so creative with their book descriptions! We awarded prizes to the three members who had earned the most points during 2021 - attending meetings, reading the books, hosting, bringing treats or wine. Mostly we talked...and talked...and talked. And maybe had a glass or two of wine. It was fun and relaxing and we all enjoyed the goodies everyone had brought to share.