I love my book club

My mom's group has a book club. We've been going for over a year now. For a while it was down to just 2 or 3 people, but we're back up again. It's the first book club I've ever been in, so I don't know how they usually go. I'm actually the "book club organizer" for our group, and this is how our club works:

• Each month a different mom hosts the meeting - sometimes at her home or maybe at a coffee shop or at Borders Books Store.
• The host mom gets to pick 3 or 4 books of her choice for our next month.  She brings a summary, or the actual books if she has them, and we all get to vote on which one we'll read.
• Our meetings last about 2 hours, and we probably spend the first hour waiting for everyone to show up and just general chit chat.  So maybe our meetings are as much social as serious discussion of the book.
• Our only real rules are the books need to be under 400 pages, and not pick anything too heavily political or religious, although I think that second rule is a bit too wimpy.  I think we could handle it.  And we've actually picked several books longer than 400 pages, we just made sure everyone was ok with it, and we gave extra time.

My favorite part of the meetings is getting to see our new book choices.  I get so excited.  And I love picking out books for us to read.  I have hosted the book club twice, but it's been over a year since I've done it. We have so many new moms in our group, so I've given them the first choice if they want to host.  I constantly have a list running in my head of what books I'll pick when it's my turn next.

One of the things I'm so proud of is that we've read all different kinds of books:  classic and contemporary fiction, non-fiction, even a cookbook.  Well, what I really want to do is list out all the books we've read, so maybe I should just get to it.

Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien were the books chosen from my two times hosting.

I actually did not read the cook book because I could never get it at the library, and I did not want to actually purchase it.  At that meeting there were three of us, and we each brought a cooked dish from the book. (one of the other girls looked up one of the recipes for me).  Now that I've started using the library again, I have a hard time just going out and buying books, since I can just check them out for free.  Sometimes the library has proven problematic for everyone to get a chance to read the book, though.

Some of the books I have in mind for when I host again are ...

• One of the Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout (I'll have to go through my collection and pick one)
• The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine M.D. (she also has The Male Brain)
• One of the Disc World novels by Terry Pratchett
• What Would the Founders Say? by Larry Schweikart
• My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams edited by Margaret A. Hogan

Our next meeting will probably be in late July, when we will discuss The Help and vote on new books.  Maybe the time after that, I'll get to host again....I hope so!