Book Club Recap 5/22

Attendees:  Alissa, Christopher, Heather, Kelly, Lisa, Michelle, Rhonda, & Tania.

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

Book Club Next Week Wed 5/22

Just a friendly reminder that next week is our book club.  Here are the details:

When: 5/22 at 7pm
Where: Rhonda's house
What we are reading: The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin  If you got through this book (it is really long} then we also assigned The Appointment by Herta Muller

Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Heather

Book Club Recap 4/17/13

**I had written most of this out soon after book club, but then got distracted and forgot about it!  Sorry!!**

Attendees:  Alissa, Heather, Julie, Lisa, Michelle, and Rhonda

Welcome Alissa and it was great to finally meet you Michelle!  My dad is in town and I'm in the middle of planning Nathan's birthday party which is this weekend, so my brain is a little shot and I'm busy.  So you will have to excuse me for the poor recap :]

We discussed The Dinner by Herman Koch.  Almost all of us read the book, which was a first!  The overall consensus of the book was that it was disturbing.  Paul & his wife, whose name I cannot remember, were really disturbing and got worse as the book went on.  We all thought that Serge was portrayed as the unlikeable character in the beginning, but by the end he is the only redeeming character in the book.  I only thought that the book was so-so.  I had read a review that said it was the European Gone Girl, which it was not.  Because of that review I was expecting the book to be different and I think that impacted the way that I felt about the book.  The others seemed to enjoy it.  We all did think that it was an easy read.  We were all very curious to know what "illness" the father and son had.  The father seemed psychotic  but so did their whole family!  Michelle thought that maybe Paul and his wife were somehow related.

After the book we discussed TV shows.  It seems like Shameless is a good show and might be one that I should start watching.  We talked a little bit about working out and we congratulate Rhonda on reaching her 5OO milestone!  The last book club that Michelle had been to was the  EPIC book club that Rambo was at that after his mother's funeral.  Michelle, Lisa, and Rhonda were reliving some of those moments.  Rambo, it was agreed that you need to come out with a book or movie called Ruthless.

I'm sure that we talked about other stuff, but it has been almost two weeks and my brain is officially on break mode!

Here are the details for our next book:

What we reading:  The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
When: Wednesday May 22 at 7pm
Where: Rhonda's house, where else!

If you are a super reader and would also like to read some more we also chose The Appointment by Herta Muller

Happy Reading!

Heather

Book Club Tomorrow 4/17

Hi Peeps!

Just wanted to remind everyone that book club is tomorrow at 7 at Rhonda's house.  I got a babysitter, so I will be there!

We will be discussing the book The Dinner by Herman Koch

See you there!

Heather

Book Club Recap 3/20/13

Attendees: Heather, Julie, Kelly, Lisa, Rhonda, Tania, and Tina.  Reggie was also here this evening and he was a pretty good boy except for when he took Tania's cookie :)

We first discussed the book The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwable.  Everyone that read this book or was in the middle of reading the book said that they really liked the story and thought that it was well written.  We loved the relationship that Will and his mother had with one another.  We also all agreed at what a well educated family this was.  Rhonda said many times how this book made her feel like she grew-up as a hobo :).  Lisa said that this book was very comforting to her and the story was very similar to what her mom and her family was going through, minus the book club.  Tina thought that the book sounded boring, but we assured her that it was not.  The book was more about the relationship between Will and his mom during her last two years of life, which we all felt Mary Anne lived to her fullest.  We also couldn't believe all of the things that Mary Anne had accomplished in her life.  One question that did come up was about her cooking good meals for her kids or did they eat the bad stuff we all grew-up on.

I can't remember how we got onto the food subject.  I'm guessing that we were all admiring and enjoying the fresh homemade bread that Rhonda had out when she started telling us about this book called Pandora's Lunchbox.  She said that the book goes into detail about what is in our food and it isn't pretty.  It is mostly about all of the processed food and the ingredients that are in it.  We had a long discussion about food and what we should and should not be eating.  The overall conclusion is that we should not be eating processed food and we should make everything from scratch.  The book Food Rules by Michael Pollan is a good starting place to figure out what to eat and what not to eat.   Anyway, the bread that Rhonda made looked so good and tasted just as good!

We discussed the book Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple just a little bit because Tina was not finished with it and didn't want us to ruin anything.  Those of us that read the book enjoyed it and thought that it was quick and easy read.  We also really liked the way that she wrote the story.  If you have not read this book book I would recommend it.

We also talked about working out, kids, Passover, our jobs, and I can't remember the rest.

Here are the details for our next book club:

When: Wednesday April 17th at 7pm (I just saw that Christopher is out of town then, so I'll have to try and get a babysitter then)
Where: Rhonda's house
What we are reading: The Dinner by Herman Koch

I hope to see you there!

Heather

Book Club Next Week 3/20

Here are the details:

When: Wednesday March 20th at 7pm
Where: Rhonda's house
What we are reading:  The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

I hope to see you there!

Heather

Book Club Recap 2/20/13

Attendees: Denise, Heather, Julie (a new member?) Lisa, Michelle, Rambo, Rhonda, Tania, and Tina.

Wow, we had a pretty great turnout for book club.  We would also like to welcome Julie to our book club.  Julie, we hope you liked our book club since we are not as serious as your other book club!

The book that we were discussing was Some Girls: My Life in a Harem by Jillian Lauren.  The overall consensus was that it was a good and interesting story, but that was it.  Jillian had no redeeming qualities about herself and many of us were looking for some change to happen with her, but there never did.  Many felt that she was narcissistic.  We all wondered what caused her to go the path that she did.  We figured that more was going on with her and her dad that she did not write about.  Denise brought up the question of what would we do if we were presented with the same situation as Jillian was.  She felt that we could all be bought and most of us agreed with her.  All that money at that young of an age would be very tempting to take.  We also talked about the incredible amount of money that the Royal family had and how much of it was wasted on living this incredible lifestyle.  I believe there is a Vanity Fair or Vogue article that Denise talked about that described Prince Jaffri's (Robin) fall from grace.

I think that this was the most that we have ever talked about a book in book club!  After the book talk we talked about Julie's other book club, schooling, the DELICIOUS bread that Rambo and Denise made, and I can't remember what else.

Here are the details for the next book club:

When: Wednesday March 20th at 7pm
Where: Rhonda's house
What we are reading:  The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

Some of us already read this book, but we thought it was a good read and wanted to discuss it with the group.

See everyone in a month!

-Heather