The Cookbook Collector

Thank you to our hostess, Angela! She was well prepared with a list of questions to discuss "The Cookbook Collector."

While we didn't love the book, we still had a robust discussion with many points of agreement among the six attendees. The plot was unnecessarily complicated with too many substories that diluted the primary themes and storyline. We had read several reviews that compared this work with Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility," and we were at a loss as to where there were similarities, with the exception of the fact that both novels' central characters were a pair of sisters.

Cindy suggested that Goodman's first novel, "Intuition," was well received by both critics and readers and perhaps she was rushed into publishing something to fulfill a contractual obligation.

We spent some time on our upcoming book selections and added a few new items to our "Books We'd Like to Read" list and proposed a December field trip to see the U.S. version of "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." More to come on those plans!

For those in the group with eReaders, iPads, and iPods, did you know you can borrow ebooks and audio books from the library? Check out the selections at http://digital.minlib.net/72BAB638-4DCC-413F-A536-6F76837C60EB/10/531/en/Default.htm. You can create your digital media account as part of your library membership and then use the free software downloads from the site (Overdrive for audio and Adobe Digital Editions for ebooks) to save the books to your device.

Our next meeting is planned for January 24 at 7:30 at Donna M's to discuss "Cutting for Stone."

Happy Holidays to all!

September Meeting Recap

Thank you, Rosie, for graciously hosting us for the kickoff of our book club series for 2011-2012! Everything was delightful, from the Japanese-themed food and drink, to the twinkle lights, to the well-prepared questions to help guide our discussion.

We had a big showing of 13 members, including some new faces. Welcome Carol, Ellen, and Nancy to your first (or possibly second) meeting!

The robust discussion led, as always, to related books that could complement our newfound knowledge of WWII or interesting war/combat accounts, including No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell, and Beyond Band of Brothers by Dick Winters. And for those interested in going back to Louie's story, there's always his autobiography, Devil at My Heels.

Our next three meetings are:

• October 25 hosted by Dorie to discuss The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
• November 29 hosted by Angela to discuss The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman
• January TBD hosted by Donna M. to discuss Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

We also discussed selecting a love story (in honor of Valentine's Day) for our February book. Two suggestions thusfar are Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonsen or The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. Any other thoughts for February or spring reads?

I've updated our book list with some of the new suggestions we shared for consideration in the future. Looking forward to seeing everyone next month!

Kicking Off Our 2011-2012 Book Club Season!

Welcome, book club friends!

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful summer. I'm looking forward to hearing all about vacations, books and other summer adventures when we meet on September 20 at Rosie's house (7:30 p.m.) to discuss Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.

I've developed this site as an online resource for book club members near and far (Anne!) so we can have our info in one place. Note that this is a public site, so I haven't included any last names, e-mail addresses, addresses, or other personal information. We could make this site private, which would require a password for members to sign in. Vote in the poll to the right if you feel strongly one way or another about public vs. private!

You'll also see a list of books that we've read as a group. I know I don't have an exhaustive list for what we've read - please keep me honest and send along the names of books I've missed and I'll add them to the list.

The What We'd Like to Read list includes titles that members have suggested in recent months. I'll update this section, and the What We're Reading Now section, after each meeting.

Along the bottom of this page you'll see links to other resources for book lovers! If you've discovered any book/reading related sites that you'd like to share with the group, send them to me and I'll post them.

Can't wait to kick off our season next week!