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Making Book on Book Club September 15, 2009

The three most important things about our book club are booze, food, and what’s that other one? Oh yeah – books. Our book club had a rather inauspicious beginning. Carmella saw the movie The Jane Austen Book Club. Next thing I knew, we had ourselves a book club.

Our first book was A Thousand Splendid Suns (Kelley’s pick) and we got off to a bang up start eating Middle Eastern food at her place. We’d all read the book and talking about women in burkas generated a lively discussion. That was almost two years ago. We’re all teachers, though we let Tina’s sister Angela join because she has a great house a high tolerance for “teacher talk.”

Some books we’ve liked more than others. To be honest, there’s been several times when half of the members downloaded excepts from the book on-line. I think Angela’s last pick How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read was an apt choice. Angela was the only one who’d read it, but we still talked about it. And ate. And drank.

We’re all crazy busy, and it’s become apparent that Book Club is just an excuse to get together with people we really like under the guise of talking about books. I envisioned intellectual introspection, but what I got was a second helping of fettucini. Can’t remember the book, but the fettucini was killer.

When I went to England last spring, I went to my friend Lesley’s book club. We met at The Station, the local pub, where we spent a fun evening discussing the book White Tiger and the dark side of life in Mumbai while enjoying the local Asphal cider.

Last summer I visited my college roommate Cathy. She’s been in a book club for like a bazillion years. Her book club even has its own blog, Blather, which you’ll find on my blogroll. I was led to believe it was a Serious Book Club. But while I was there, Cathy’s husband made the observation that they only spend around 20 minutes actually talking about the book at book club. Hmmm. Come to think of it, the last post on Blather was a recipe!

Last Sunday we met at Kristina’s. In the evite there was mention of discussing a possible change to our “book club format.”  Every other month? Only New York Times bestsellers? No. It was proposed that we have a theme for the food and everyone bring a potluck dish related to the theme. “Will the theme be related to the book?” I asked naively. Kristina took a deep breath. “Well, we were thinking that maybe we could just leave out the book part.” She quickly added, “But we can still call it Book Club!”  Oh dear. Is this The End or To Be Continued…?

When I emailed my friend Bev in England about this “change in format,” she sent me a link to a hilarious episode of The Vicar of Dibley about what happens at a book club when no one’s read the book. Actress Dawn French plays the female vicar, self-described as a “Babe with a bob cut and a magnificent bosom.” The book club scene is a minute into the clip and is a hoot. Cheers!