| 1/7 MEETING NOTES |
| Hello Everyone!! It was so nice to meet all of you and I had a great time! We accomplished a lot, especially considering their were 16 of us to give input. Here's the synopsis: Regular meeting time: 2nd Monday of the month at 7pm. Next Meeting, Monday February 11th. We will continue to meet at The Book Passage until we feel comfortable enough to meet in homes (and someone volunteers to host us!). This meeting time is very nearly set in stone. RSVP: I will request RSVP's about 10 days before the meeting. Please respond, even if it is to say you can'tmake it. Meeting Leader: The person whose book was chosen will be the leader of the discussion meeting for that book. The leader does not need to "lead" the entire discussion. S/he will open the meeting with a short (5 to 10 minutes) author bio and interesting facts about the book. Was the book controversial when it came out? Did it not gain popularity until years after it was published? Was the author drunk when writing it? After that, the leader can just open the discussion. Then, if the discussion needs a kick, the leader will be prepared with about 5 questions and can pose them to the group (not all at once, obviously!). Book Selection: We went around the room and shared our suggestions. Then, we voted (by secret ballot). The top 2 vote-getters were chosen, we tabled the 3rd month selection to see how we feel next month. This method of book choosing seemed to work well, but we have other options to choose from if we become dissatisfied with it. For example, we can rotate choice among members, with that person bringing 3 to 5 selections for the group to vote on. Attendance: "When fewer than 5 people attend, it can be difficult to get a good discussion going. Spotty attendance also creates animosity. Those who do attend feel put-upon, and rightly so: they have canceled other plans, hired a baby-sitter, postponed work, sacrificed family time, or made some other change in their routine, only to have other people fail to show -- in effect saying, "Who cares?" -- this is a quote from the book group book I read, and I think it sums it up nicely. Book Finishing: Try to finish the book, even if you hate it. Often the members that hated it the most have the most to contribute to the discussion, or at least they spark the others. Keep in mind, we can not keep the ending a secret if you didn't finish. But, finishing is not mandatory. Of course, not everyone can finish the book every time, things come up. Attendance is still encouraged as you can join in the discussion about sections you read. And, in the event you never finish the book, you might learn all you need to know from the meeting! The Big Finale!! Our 2 selections are... A Moveable Feast, Hemingway (to be discussed at next meeting) In the preface to A Moveable Feast, Hemingway remarks casually that "if the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction"--and, indeed, fact or fiction, it doesn't matter, for his slim memoir of Paris in the 1920's is as enchanting as anything made up and has become the stuff of legend. Paris in the '20s! Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley, lived happily on $5 a day and still had money for drinks at the Closerie des Lilas, skiing in the Alps, and fishing trips to Spain. On every corner and at every caf� table, there were the most extraordinary people living wonderful lives and telling fantastic stories. Gertrude Stein invited Hemingway to come every afternoon and sip "fragrant, colorless alcohols" and chat admit her great pictures. He taught Ezra Pound how to box, gossiped with James Joyce, caroused with the fatally insecure Scott Fitzgerald (the acid portraits of him and his wife, Zelda, are notorious). Meanwhile, Hemingway invented a new way of writing based on this simple premise: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." As I Lay Dying, Faulkner Faulkner's distinctive narrative structures--the uses of multiple points of view and the inner psychological voices of the characters--in one of its most successful incarnations here in As I Lay Dying. In the story, the members of the Bundren family must take the body of Addie, matriarch of the family, to the town where Addie wanted to be buried. Along the way, we listen to each of the members on the macabre pilgrimage, while Faulkner heaps upon them various flavors of disaster. Contains the famous chapter completing the equation about mothers and fish--you'll see. |