Book Club

I decided to join a Book Club.

Can you really claim to be interested in writing if you have never been in a book club?

I don't think so...

I thought it was a neighborhood book club but the hostess was the only neighbor there, except my sister Jenny who used to be in the neighborhood, but moved. So technically...

I mention that because I thought I'd know these people. Despite the fact that I'll talk to any random stranger for hours...about anything... I'm kinda shy... No really, if I haven't met you and I know I'll be seeing you again I'd like to make a good impression.

Our book for the month was


I kept forgetting to go pick up a copy to read so finally Tuesday night at work I looked to see if I could find it online. I found a site with the whole book free to read online and finished reading at 6:45 PM, showered and went to book club at 7:30 PM

I don't know if I was basking in that, "I just finished reading it" glow, or what; but, I felt like the chatty church lady we all try to avoid each Sunday.

I really loved the book, every word felt like it was chosen for its effect on the story. The dialogue between characters captured the random predictability that turns family speak into it's own mysteriously comfortable dialect. I was drawn into each scene by the brilliant use of simile or is it metaphor? I get those two mixed up.

Parts of the book that went on and on about English history and stamp collecting felt like slogging through a muddy English field towards a ramshackle estate that keeps getting farther away each time you look up; but, I think that was part of the charm of the story, the contrast between something as exciting as a stranger murdered in the garden and the deadly dull idea of stamp collecting... wait, maybe that's the metaphor part?

Anyway, I was going off enthusiastically about what I thought it all meant and dropping chunks of strawberry pie down my cleavage and everyone else was, "Meh, we didn't like it that much..."

Hmmm...Welcome to book club?

So have you ever been part of a book club?

What was your experience?

My earliest memory is of my Dad holding me, the smell of horses and frost; I can still feel the warmth and strength of my fathers hard arms around me, the cupping of his hand under mine as steamy, pungent horse breath blew across my three year old fingertips.

Our hands flattened, the velvet, prickles of horse lips nibbled and tasted, delighting me. The frosty air heightened my sense of, Daddy's warmth. Oh, the utter joy of discovering that a horse, something so large and dangerous to a small child, was safe and wondrous wrapped in my fathers love.

It is a rare thing to realize that each of our experiences is shared with us by a loving father. " All these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good."

Freely delight in each experience, it's why you are here.