I was told that I needed to get on this ASAP, so here it is! :]
I'll do it in reverse order this time.
Details for our next book club:
When: Wed 6/12 at 7pm. This date may change. I told Rhonda that Phil Jackson is being interviewed in a series by Live Talks Los Angeles and she should go. If she does go then we will have to reschedule for sometime that week.
Where: Rhonda's House
What we are reading: Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende
Here's the recap:
We discussed the book The Appointment by Herta Muller first and actually more than our other book because more people finished or attempted to finish this. From what everyone said this book was HORRIBLE! No one liked it and they said to not waste your time reading it. They said that the plot had a good premise, but didn't live up to that. They said that the book was about this lady's random thoughts as she is on a train to an appointment. They said that she would be telling a story and you would get interested in the story and then she would change thoughts and go in a new direction and you were thinking, WTF? Then she wouldn't revisit that thought. They said that the ending was the most disappointing because the book just ended. The author didn't tie anything together or end the book so that you knew what would happen. I think the train stopped and that was it. The lady didn't even go to the appointment. I looked on Amazon it the book has a rating of 3.7 out of 5, which seems high because no one in the group liked this book. Anyway, don't waste your time reading this.
The other book that we were reading was The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin. Three of us read the book and really enjoyed it. Rhonda, Lisa, and Kelly were still reading the book, so that is why we didn't discuss it more. Perhaps at the next book club we can talk about it more. We all liked Talmadge's character. I thought the writing was good and it reminded me a little of Cormac McCarthy with how it was never an uplifting novel, but it was well written and I enjoyed reading it. Kelly was having a hard time getting through it and Lisa said that it was starting to drag for her too.
Since we discussed the two books as much as we good we decided to talk about other books that we have read. We talked about The Paris Wife, Devil In The White City & In The Garden of Beasts both by Erik Larson (highly recommend Devil In the White City!], Beautiful Ruins, Furious Love, Harry Potter, Twilight, and Fifty Shades of Grey. The discussions about Fifty Shades was really hilarious! Everyone of us that read the book did not like it, but we told stories about people we knew that LOVED the book. At this point Christopher and Rambo were texting each other about how Christopher needs to escape book club now! Rambo sent this gem to him, which Christopher played for us.
A HUGE congrats goes out to Rhonda and Michelle for medaling in their age division for a 5K that they recently did. They also came in 9th and 1Oth overall! We talked about Raven's 1/2 Marathon and her running. Great job Raven!!! We talked about Nebraska and how there is nothing to do there (Lisa's son is going to college there]. The food was delicious, as usual, but we were a little disappointed that we didn't get to have one of the cheese logs because sneaky Reggie came and snatched it from the table and then ran away and ate it all. He was very quick!
I think that was mostly what we discussed. The next book club is fast approaching, but we hope that it is enough time to read this book!
See you in three weeks!
Heather
