Although I read a LOT, I have never been in a book club until this past year or so. I've enjoyed the experience greatly because the gals in my club are fun, interesting, and make a point of reading the books. We get into some great discussions. All of us were brought in by another member, but no one really knew more than one or two other people before joining. It has been a lot of fun to develop new friendships as well as enjoy a shared pastime.
We do not have a theme or work from any pre-fab list of books. The set up is that we rotate hosting responsibilities, the hostess tries to cook (or at least serve) a dinner that is related to the book somehow, and the hostess picks the next book. So, for instance, the gal before me picked A Thousand Splendid Suns, I cooked Afghan food, and then I followed that disturbing book about wife abuse by choosing The Bone People, a disturbing book about child abuse. Luckily, our books aren't always so grim.
In the past year, we've read the following:
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Leap of Faith by Queen Noor
The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Bone People by Keri Hulme (reviewed here)
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
Next up is Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. I have that one teed up on my iPod to start as soon as I finish the 2007 National Book Award winner, Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson.
