by Elaine Burgin

Created on: January 21, 2009

I have wanted to be in a book club for as long as I can remember, but never got around to joining one until I retired and moved to another state. One day when I was leaving a meeting of the local Newcomers Club, I struck up a conversation with another Newcomer. She told me she was thinking of starting a book club and asked me if I was interested in joining. I said I would love to, and we exchanged phone numbers. She contacted a few other people, and we began our group with 8 women just about 3 years ago. Another member joined a month or so later. We decided to limit the number to 9 members. This allows us to easily gather in someone's living room or around a dining room table.

We hold our meetings monthly, at lunchtime, and rotate among the members' homes. We don't meet in December, but instead have an evening cocktail party with our husbands around Christmastime. In July or August we take a picnic lunch to the beach, and go for a swim after we finish our discussion. After 2 years of reading recently published books, we decided last year to introduce classics into our reading list. Now we alternate monthly between a classic and a non-classic. One of the things that make our group unique is that we plan a theme luncheon based on the book we are discussing that month. At our last luncheon, we discussed Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities". Our hostess served brie and champagne before a delicious quiche Lorraine main course. She followed this up with an apple tart decorated with a miniature flag on a toothpick, one side French the other English. At the last luncheon that I hosted, I served Afghan food because the book we discussed that month, "Three Cups of Tea", by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, centers on the tribal areas of Northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. I found several Afghan recipes on the internet that looked fairly uncomplicated, made them ahead of time, and tested them on my husband. He survived, so I made them again for my book luncheon. I found a radio station that streams Afghan music all day over the internet, and played that during my luncheon. I could do this since my computer was close enough to my dining room that my guests could easily hear it. I found an excellent example of a red Afghan Bokhara carpet by searching on the internet, and printed it out to use as a background for my menu. One of the women started taking photos at each gathering. She emails the photos to each member, and we often share these with our friends and family. At the end of last year, she created a scrapbook and gave each member a copy. It was a great way to remember what we wore, ate, etc. One of the most interesting photos was the luncheon for "Tobacco Road" by Erskine Caldwell, where each member dressed as if she were a character from the book.

For the last several months, we have asked the hostess to print some discussion questions for her book and give a copy to each member. This keeps us on track and generates good conversation and an exchange of ideas. It's easy to find discussion questions on the internet for almost any book. Word has gotten around our community about our book club, and we know that there are people who would love to join our group, and are waiting for an opening. But none of us are planning to leave anytime soon. We're having too much fun.

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