February Book Club choice

The House at Sugar Beach-in search of a lost African Childhood
by Helene Cooper

Check out the video link and hear the author talk about the 
book in her own words.
 http://www.simonandschuster.com/multimedia?video=27812683001

January meeting

What a wild meeting we had!  First off, sorry for not posting a review of the last couple of meetings.  The holidays got the better of me.  I just couldn't keep up.  I'll try to do better this year. 

We met on Friday January 29th at Suzi's house to discuss The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield .   Everyone loved the book.  But we had some strong opinions on what happened, what it meant and what the author didn't say.  We were split on liking Hester, we were split on liking Margaret, we were split on which twin was saved.   There were strong opinions on the time period and what hints the author gave to re-inforce those beliefs.   Almost everyone got the location immediately.... but a few of us, ok me, were a little slow in picking up those references.  The twist at the end surprised everyone.  This book generated a lot of great conversation.  (On a side note, I have decided to cast my own group of characters for the movie version.  I still believe that John the dig should be a Non-white man!) 

The author did such a wonderful job of creating a mood for this book.  She made it a little more difficult for us with the food.  The main characters hardly ate.  There was mention of soup and salad and cake.  Not much else.  But we ended up with several tasty salads, soups, chili, angel biscuits, cake, cookies and of course hot chocolate.  We ended the meeting with a book exchange which helped some folks clean off their bookcases and make room for the new selections.  Overall a fun night with Betsy declaring that she will wear depends next time. 

We choose our books for the next 2 months.  The House at Sugar Beach is the February book.  Rory choose this autobiography and Deborah agreed to host at her house.  Molly is hosting the March meeting and we are reading Dennis Lehane, The Given Day.   
I'm so happy we've all made this group successful.   See you at the end of February.
Beth