May Meeting

I have been most tardy in adding commentary from our meetings.   I looked at the blog and realized the last time I updated the meeting notes was in January.  I will attempt to make this a regular habit but quite often life gets in the way. 

For the month of May we met at Betsy's house and discussed Deborah's pick 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith.  Only a few members actually finished the book but most everyone read enough to join in the discussion.  The book is set in Edinburgh and follows the happenings of a variety of interesting characters.  It was originally published in the daily paper The Scotsman in segments.  The author was inspired by Armistead Maupin's serialised novel Tales of the City.

As a group most felt it was a easy read, enjoyable but didn't have a lot of depth.  Not a lot happens in the book.  It is more a humorist look at life.  Jane compared it to Seinfeld... A book about nothing.  Lot's of interesting vignettes.   We discussed the characters and the fact that a lot of the happenings are never referred to again or even explained.    The book did include some food references but very few of our food items came from the book.  Rory made the mushroom risotto that Domenica makes for Pat in the beginning.  We had several yummy salads, chocolate dipped strawberries and cheesecake.  I did a coffee tasting for the group in honor of the Big Lou's coffee bar. 

As usual the conversation got of track by the end of the evening and we were entertained by Annette's story involving canned pork-and -beans and breast.  (you had to be there.)    A few of us are now wishing we were part of the Gustine Reunion planning committee just so we could witness the Olympic games.

Next month it is Lori's pick.  She recommending The Help months ago and we finally decided to not wait for the paperback to arrive.  

We have our next 3 books chosen so that folks can read up over the summer.  We are skipping July due to the number of vacations and moving right to August.  Jane is hosting the August meeting with a book that Linda actually recommended at the first gathering, the Forgotten Garden.  Kitty is hosting the September choice.  I'm not sure who to credit the recommendation to.  It is the Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman.  This is the book that brought Suzi, Jane and myself together over ice cream at Leatherbees and  formed the idea of the Book club.  Then in October is Suzi's choice of The Graveyard book.  

I can't wait for the food from The Help.  Good ole Southern fare. 

Read on

Beth