Return to the Present...Historically!

Our next selection is temporally related to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," but it's recently published. We shall foray into history with Team Of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by acclaimed (sometimes controversially) historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Get ready for some great descriptions of big, fluffy muttonchop sideburns...

How about Monday March 9th for our next meetup? Post a comment below...

Southward From France

Our average is improving, Ladies -- Dickens was more favorably received than Garcia Marquez, who knew? From the Victorian moralizing we go to....more moralizing, but across the pond this time...

January's pick:
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

How about Monday Jan. 12, 2009 for a meetup? RSVP in the comments....and enjoy the holiday whirl! :)

Best of Times, Worst of Times

Sound familiar? :) Hope you are enjoying Dickens' thrilling tale of the French Revolution, ladies...plenty of time to dive in! Discussion night details:

A Tale of Two Cities
Monday Nov. 17th @ 7pm
Chez Emily

Please RSVP in comments....and for all you Madame Defarge wannabes, bring your knitting! ;)

From Love to Revolution

Well Ladies, our first book club of the year was a success, although the book itself was not! Love in the Time of Cholera got a resounding D+ from our panel -- apparently not everything from the 80's is making a comeback these days. Even Penny reported that the movie wasn't so hot either...better luck next time.

Which brings me to our choices for rounds 2 and 3. We'd like to read some Dickens, and after batting around several titles A Tale of Two Cities came up strong. So please dive into the tale of Madame DeFarge and Co. -- simultaneous knitting projects optional. After that, we thought an American classic was in order -- perhaps Uncle Tom's Cabin? Or Huck Finn? Please comment below on your ideas.

A Tale of Two Cities night will be in early November -- details to follow. . .

Love Wins

The votes are unscientifically tallied -- Love in the Time of Cholera is our September read! Feel free also to watch the 2007 film adaptation, mmmmm, si, Javier. :)

We can vote at the get-together on which Dickens tome to tackle for the second round...do your background Wikipedia info-gathering now! :P

Vote Early, Vote Often

Alright ladies, we have some great suggestions for September reading! Here are the top three overlapping choices, unscientifically speaking:

* Love in The Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

* Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

* The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Please vote in the comments, and I'll update with our choice -- all three are certainly available at your local library too!

Details to follow, mark down Tuesday 9/30 at 6:30pm for our meeting. Cheers!

September Kickoff

Time to go back to the books, Ladies! Summer reading is fading away slowly (Breaking Dawn, anyone?), let's get ready for Year Two of our delightful Book Club.

Now that we have the six Jane Austen novels under our belts, it's time to move on to new fields of inquiry...and reveal your secret literary shame! Everyone has a book (or two) that you've never read despite its classic status, its blockbuster sales, or the fact that friends near and far have tried repeatedly to foist it on you, praising its brilliance. Sometimes you fake your way through conversations about the basic plot points....sometimes you rail against its overratedness...and sometimes you just don't correct people who assume you must have read it, right?

So let's tackle that rogue's gallery this year -- except for Moby Dick, that's disqualified.

Post a comment below on your personal Hall of Shame reads -- Jane Eyre, perhaps? The Grapes of Wrath? The Corrections? Anything at all by Neal Gaiman? Or Jodi Picoult, Stephen King, or Tolstoy? Let it all hang out, ladies. I'll shuffle everything into a ballot, and we'll vote on the first read.

As for our first get-together, how about Tuesday September 30th, in Watertown? Comments and suggestions welcome.

Shame on! :P