Why I love Book Club

The book club I am part of stems from our local MOPS group. We have been meeting for about a year and a half now. We meet every other month and I have been lucky enough to make each meeting. We also take turns hosting and the hostess chooses the book we read. One of our guidelines we try to go with is that we try not choose books that are super new because many of us like to get the books from our local library vs. purchasing them new in hardback. Our library usually only has one copy that we take turns with and some of the ladies have also purchased their books online at used prices.

One of my favorite things about the book club is that I have read some books I would never have picked for myself. Some of them I have really enjoyed ( The Good Earth, Three Weeks With My Brother, & The Notebook) and only one or two did I dislike (The Red Tent). It forces me out of my usual genre (Good in Bed, Something Borrowed, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, Yada Yada Prayer Group, Stephanie Plum Novels.

We are meeting at my house in a few weeks to discuss the book Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio. I had found this book at a garage sale a year or so ago and needed to make a decision one night on what our next selection was going to be. I grabbed this one out of my overflowing book box of "books to read". I really enjoyed it. It was full of sadness with some humor and love mixed in.

I am currenty reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. This was not a book club selection by two of the gals in BC say it is their top favorite, so I thought I would give it a try. It is HUGE and for the first week or so I swear I was not even making a dent in it. Now I am over half way done and pick it up any time I can. I am really enjoying it. It is so interesting. Full of twists and turns with all of the characters.

I have looked at the new techie items out there for the digital reading of books...the e-reader thing-a-ma-jigs. There is the Amazon Kindle, which I first heard about when I saw Oprah giving them away on one of her shows, and the Nook by Barnes and Noble which I heard about at the stores while shopping one day. A Cowgirl at Heart just got one (Kindle) for Christmas and I can't wait to hear more about how much she loves hers as she breaks it in a bit. There are others I'm sure, but these are the only two I have really heard about.

One of the things I would have liked one of these for is that I heard that while you are reading if you come across a word that you would like to look up, you can just push a button. My lazy butt is not getting out of bed to go get a dictionary so I think I would use this feature. Right now I rely on my "context clues" from good ol' 4th grade to help me.

Okay that is just a lame reason for why I would like one...I really just think they would be cool to have and have basically a bookstore at your fingertips. Prices are generally lower on purchasing e books as well.