Happy Anniversary Bookies and our 100th Book

Last night was our 9 year anniversary of the book club I belong to.  It was also our 100th book!  We meet the last Wednesday every month, except in November d/t Thanksgiving we meet the first Wednesday in December and no last Wed in December due to Holidays.  This book club means so much to me.  The "bookies" are comprised of women of all ages and all life experiences.  They are amazing women and I learn so much from listening to them and their life stories and their evaluation/critique of books.  We are not a hoitty toitty book club and tend to not like those book that are "must reads" in the high brow literary circuit.  We like to have fun and discuss the book at hand, but also discuss  life through our meetings.  We also enjoy Wine with our book club discussions :).   These women have been a part of not only my life, but my children's life- they both as newborns attended their first book clubs weeks after being born.  One book club member walked my "challenging" oldest around the block as a newborn so I could just have a minute of peace of quiet, drink of wine and enjoy book club without him attached to me. Another bookie suggested trying the pacifier for my youngest.  Despite me trying a few weeks after birth and her wanting nothing to do with it, she gladly took that pacifier a month later at book club- I'm indebted to that bookie forever. I feel like I've been a part off many of these women's own family lives by our meetings monthly. We've even had some of the children of bookies attend book club to discuss books they too have read.  We have given each other support during  times of tragedy, illness and just overall "life issues".  These women are my "peeps".  We all bring different things to the book club table, but we all seem to really enjoy each other.  I always leave book club feeling happier, more full and loved.  Thanks bookies- love you ladies!

So for our 100th book I picked "The Marriage Plot".  The person who hosts book club normally picks the book.  My all time favorite book club book is "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides.  I had been looking forward to reading "The Marriage Plot"- his second book- due to how much I loved "Middlesex".  Well it happened again I picked an author who I have previously read and loved and unfortunately am disappointed greatly with my pick.  The first time I did this was with Erik Larson's "Thunderstruck".  I loved "Devil in the White City" (excellent book for anyone who loves historical fiction and Chicago- READ IT!).  So I picked "Thunderstruck" and was so disappointed.  Not a read I would recommend- so was embarrassed that I forced the bookies into reading it.  

"Middlesex" Still my favorite Book Club after 9 years.

 So I did it again with "The Marriage Plot"- disappointed.  A favorite word we use in Book Club "endearing".  None of the characters in this novel were "endearing".  I kept reading the book thinking the story line was going to improve- it didn't!  This book was written with a kind of literary uppityness that none of us from book club really appreciated.  I've decided I will not pick another author we've previously read and loved as a second read for book club.  

Here are a list of the 100 books we've read over the last 9 years- for anyone interested.  

Secret Life of Bees              Candy and Me                           Say When

Plain Song                           Middlesex                                  Peace Like a River

Bleachers                            Da Vinci Code                           Cold Mountain

Mrs. Dalloway                     5 people You Meet in Heaven    In Her Shoes

Girls Poker Night               Spirit Catches You...                   Autobiography of a Face

Dive from Claussens' Pier   Carousel                                    Curious Incident of Dog...

The Reading Group            Uncle Tom's Cabin                    Me and Emma

Maltese Falcon                   Wicked                                    Gilead

Heart is a lonely hunter       Sisterhood of Traveling Pants     Mermaid Chair

Hotel Paradise                    Kite Runner                               Keeping Faith

She Got Up Off the Couch  Big Rock Candy Mountain        Light on Snow

Big Stone Gap                    5th Horseman                           Out of the Silent Planet

Cooked and Inner City...    The Tortilla Curtain                    The Alchemist

The Memory Keepers Daughter  Thunderstruck                  Magic Hour

The Glass Castle               Sojourner Truth                         Christ the Lord of Egypt

Not Buying It                    Arms and the Woman               Thousand Splendid Suns

Year of Magical Thinking  Rocket Boys                             The Space Between

I Feel bad about my neck  3 cups of Tea                           This I believe

Remember me                   Leaving the Saints                    Loving Frank

Girls Who Went Away     An Acceptable Time                 The Last Lecture

Road Map to Holland      Chicago Way                            Sisters Mortland

Middle Place                   Where are you now?                 Many Lives, Many Masters

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency                                 Standing Tall

Girls from Ames              Hungry Woman in Paris             Book Thief

Persuasion                      The Believers                             Pillars of the Earth

The Bean Tree                Atonement                                 Peter Pan

Little Heathens               The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  Shit My Dad Says

The Lolita Effect             The Help                                    Her Fearful Symmetry

Little Bee                       Season of Life                            Why my 3rd Husband will be a dog

Cutting for Stone            In Cold Blood                            

This year's reads:
Henrietta Lacks           Unbroken                   Handmaid's Tale

Year in Provence         Year We Left Home   Me Talk Pretty One Day

John Adams                State of Wonder         Hunger Games

Marriage Plot