Loving the Des Moines Life: Book Club, take one

After a failed attempt to start a book club in Albany (we managed to meet twice before admitting defeat), I hoped to find a book club rather than start my own. I was thrilled to hear one of chapters of P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization) I was invited to visit also has a book club. The book club meets every other month and reads two books.

What we read
The September picks were Sister by Rosamund Lupton (my review) and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (my review). While I liked one much more than the other, they both made great books for discussion. As many so often say, discussions of books you don't like are sometimes more enjoyable.

What we ate
I admit, I didn't quite know what to expect when it came to food and drink. I was delighted to see a smorgasbord of mini-wrap sandwiches, cheese and crackers, fresh fruit, nuts, and brownies. Plus, there were four bottles of wine. I was in heaven: snack, drink wine and read.

The consensus
One sign of a good book club: there is no consensus. Everyone was positive about Guernsey, but many had read it previously and didn't remember many of the details. Unfortunately, not everyone read Sister because the lines at the library are still quite long. One question I posed about Sister was the age of the sisters. For some reason, I didn't realize how young they were until I had been reading awhile. When it began, I assumed they were closer to my age. As the youngest person in book club, I asked if anyone else misread their ages. We agreed Bee's age was a little ambiguous initially.

What made for the most interesting discussion, however, was noting both novels are epistolary, albeit in dramatically different ways. It was an unintentional commonality when the books were selected, but it provided some interesting discussion.

The joy of spoilers
I try hard to not give out more than basic plot details in my reviews here, let alone spoilers (except, of course, in rare situations that merit them). The biggest thrill for me was being able to talk so candidly about literature. I had forgotten how rarely I get to engage in discussions rife with spoilers. Sister, a thriller, had some fascinating twists and surprises, and it was fun to hear which ones others found most surprising, as their  reactions varied from mine.

Next time...we spent almost as much time picking our next reads as we did discussing this month's reads, but I enjoyed the possibilities immensely. In the end, we couldn't narrow it down, so we picked three books:

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Winter Garden by Kristin Hanah

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

How is that for variety? Can you guess which one I suggested? Several of the members have already read Winter Garden and love it, and I'm trying to wait for the temperature to drop so I can enjoy the winter-ness of it. Unbroken is new to all of us, and I'm excited to have an excuse to read it. I often need a push to read non-fiction, so I'm glad to have this one. We meet the week after Thanksgiving to discuss these three titles.

Now tell me: Have you read Unbroken or Winter Garden? What do you think of them as book club picks?

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