Book Group Night

I'm in a book group with several of my lady friends. It was organized by Kristine Stevenson and Heidi Scott and started meeting back in June. The first book selection was Cutting For Stone. I read it before I knew it was selected to be the first book chosen. Kristine recommended it to me over a year and a half ago--as one of those books she just couldn't put down. It was a deep read--and the discussion with the lady friends was awesome--and included foods from Ethiopia (where part of the book is set). As part of the structure to a book "group"--a portion of the evening is dedicated to discussing the book read, followed by the "great reveal" of the next book. The hostess for the night selects the upcoming book that is to be read and a new hostess is selected for the next meeting place.

Heidi selected Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. It was a marvelous book, and probably one that I wouldn't have selected to read on my own either. It was a tale of deep ties and relationship bonds in two girls that were selected to be friends for life, as per Chinese culture and customs of the 1820's. It included a great story with a betrayal twist, forgiveness, and ultimately, restitution. Bonus: it wove in incredible details about foot binding in higher class Chinese societies and how in regions of China, women had secret languages only shared amongst themselves. Fascinating bits of truisms that really kept the story moving and so engaging.

The discussion night for this book was at Wynne Urien's house--decorated with awesome Chinese lanterns she had made. She and Heidi did an amazing Chinese Zodiac reading and scroll for each of us based on our birthdays. It was kind of eerie how accurate it was. We all went around the circle and shared the aspects we thought we most specific to us. Then Heidi also did a comparison based on each of our spouses and how compatible the Zodiac charts predicted we would be together. It's based on the year and the month you and your spouse are born. Jeff and I have a 90% compatibility ratio because we were both born in the Year of the Rat--and Rats stick together--if you know what I mean. It was a great night. I was selected to be the host for the next night and Wynne selected the book we were to read--The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean.

I've been keeping track of some of the books I read on www.goodreads.com/. It has a place for you to give your opinion on what you thought of book you've read. For this particular book, I wrote: "I didn't love it. It was one of the those books that I had a morbid relationship with . It disturbed me and had me wondering what was really going on at times. I think it was definitely in the psychological genre--and I don't think that I would be thrilled to know my teenager was reading it--even though it's considered young adult literature. I wouldn't ban her from it--but frankly, not my cup of tea (poisoned, or otherwise). It did have enough angst going on that I had to see what happened to the crazy main character in the end. I even tried to research the author to find out what kind of books she is known for--and didn't get too much insight into WHY this type of storyline. I'm sure that it will be well received from deep thinkers...." That about sums it up in a very minute fashion. But we did have a great discussion on the weird relationship that Symone had with her Uncle, her disconnect from reality with her make-believe friend Titus (an English explorer that died on one of the explorations to Antarctica almost 100 years before), and the twisted tale of searching for the tunnels to the center of the earth. It was captivating on the edge of neurotic. There. I said it. It was a neurotic read. (Thanks to Wynne, though, for selecting it, or otherwise it would have remained unknown to me).

So being that I hosted the group tonight at my house--I had to make refreshments and select the new book for everyone to read for next time. I wanted to follow the general "theme" of the book--because that's just me--for the food. After a little Internet search for things that had to do with Antarctica--the only thing I could come up creative food options for were Penguins. That lent itself beautifully to the book because the sightseeing company that Symone's uncle hired to charter them to Antarctica, was called Pehnwings. Funny. So with a few gold fish crackers, some white chocolate Pirouline cookies, and festive M&Ms...here's what I came up with to compliment the awful book--

Penguins. Lots of them. And they were delicious. I found the idea on my cyber search and it proved to be a hit and incredibly simple. Three ingredients--that's all it took. Olives. Cream cheese. Carrots. I cut the bottom olive on only one side, opening it up for a 1/2 tsp of cream cheese. You slice the carrots and cut a small triangle out of the bottom. That becomes the beak and you've just created the feet. I used colored mini h'orderve skewers to hold the olives on top of each other to form the body of the penguin. The little piece of carrot went in the hole of the top olive and sat on the body, with the skewer anchoring the body to the carrot feet.
(A closer look at the little marvel).

So CUTE and they were pretty tasty too. But I digress....And now for the book I chose for the group!

The book I selected for this month is Moloka'i by Alan Brennert. I was hoping that I wouldn't select a book that anyone had read before. That's a little tricky to accomplish when you have the Queen of Reading (Kristine) and The English Professor (Heidi) in your group. But I succeeded. A virgin novel!!

I wanted to add a little fanfare to the big reveal, so I attached it to a bag of Tropical trail mix and a note introducing the book as a trip to paradise. I wanted the anticipation of what was coming next not to be disappointing or anti-climatic to the great conversation we just had. I don't think I disappointed my lady friends. I will lead the discussion next month and look forward to hearing which book Diane Fontana is going to choose for the following month.

What a great way to keep bring friends together...a love of books, conversation, laughter, and great discussions. [Jeff said that it was pretty loud around the table tonight. I think that is GREAT!! The mom and her friends are making all the noise as the kids sit quietly playing games...talk about role reversile!]