January 13th, 2010 Meeting

Tonight we met at Deb's house to discuss this months selection, Eat Pray Love. We were missing two members Verna and Fran, who are currently down south, however we did have e-mails from both of them with their comments and Verna was able to join us for a short time via Skype. I think this was one of the best meetings we have had. First off, everyone had read the book! For the most part everyone seemed to enjoy the book to various degrees. We each had some criticisms but for the most part everyone found a degree of inspiration from it. We had a very lively, moving and at times humorous discussion. There were some very tender stories exchanged and we had a lot of good laughs. It is interesting how each meeting is so different depending on that months selection. Some books are about the story, some about the literature and some teach lessons. The really good ones combine all of these things! Next month we move onto our Mystery. Till then.....

December 9, 2009 Meeting

Tonight's meeting was a little different from our regular meetings. Due to a death in the family Janet was unable to host the meeting in November. It was decided that as it was Janet's choice of books we did not want to go on without her so the meeting was deferred to the next month. We decided to combine two meetings in one and discuss both November's book The Shack as well as Verna's choice for December Victor Hugo's, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The meeting was held at Janet's home. This would be the last meeting of this year that we would all be together as some of our members will be heading south.
There was a variety of opinions regarding The Shack but all in all in was probably not one of the more popular books we read. Some of us liked the book to a point and felt it had some positive messages while others felt it was both poorly written and of little value. It is always risky when books of a religious nature are discussed. People are a little more guarded with their opinions for fear of offending someone.
The second book we discussed was Verna's choice of the classic Hunchback of Notre Dame. Again opinions were varied. A few of us loved the book both for it's story and the skill of the author Victor Hugo. A couple of us just couldn't get past the language or felt the story was dragging at points and abandoned it and a couple just didn't bother reading it. Reasons such as lack of interest and lack of time were cited for this. On a personal note I find it disappointing when our members do not make at least a noble attempt to read the novel of the month. It is after all the reason we have a "Book Club". We discussed dropping classics from our list as they seem to cause problems for some of us. It was decided to give it one more try with Pat's upcoming choice of The Scarlett Letter. I hope everyone will enjoy it and appreciate it.
Now it is onto next months selection of Eat, Pray, Love. Quite a departure from Mr. Hugo!