The Wine, Food and oh yeah, Book Club

In 1999 a few friends and I started a book club. Who would have known that it would be going strong 6 years later and have morphed into a fantastic aspect of my social life.

I love going to book club, not only for the great conversation we have about our reads, but also because we have so dang much fun! Lychee martinis or champagne anyone?!

Over the years our gathering has seen many beloved members come and go, and has incorporated several traditions - most of which include lots of good food and wine! Hence, the illustrious name of our club.

I was at book club last night and, even though slightly blurry today, I am filled up by the camraderie, the titilatting conversation, the laughter, the awesome food (thanks Dale and Nikolai) and the tangents of outrageous subjects that we ended up on (some is past PG-13, so I won't mention here!)

Everyone should have a 'book club', a regular gathering of folks that fill your bucket brimming to the top.

So, I thought that I'd share some of the latest reads of our book club. You should know that our one rule is: if you don't like it, don't read it. Life is too short to be in a group of book Nazi's. And, we also love it when we disagree!

• Ka'aawa - OA Busnell. Lot's of conversation about this last night. For those of you mainlanders who may be wondering how the heck to pronounce this - say all the 'a's and the w sounds like a v. Got it? It's a valley town on the windward side of Oahu. This book, written by a white man in the 70's tells a fictional tale of two men in Hawaii in the 1850's. I think you have to live here or have some familiarity with the area to enjoy this. Even with our group of 'locals' we had a wide range of feelings about this book - on our scale of 1-10, it got from 5 to 8.5.
• The Summer Guest - Justin Cronin. A family saga type story set in the wooded eastern lake region. A fun read, but the book club agreed that it ended poorly and was somehwat too predictable. Received 5-7 on the book club scale, I think.
• The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason. Set in Burma in the late 1800's during the British occupation. A British officer has an elegant piano sent to the jungle so he can woo the local chiefs, but of course it arrives out of tune. The piano tuner is sent from England to tune the piano, but has the journey of a lifetime. Lot's of intrigue and our book club all disagreed about what really happened in the end. Some really liked this books and others (like me) didn't.

Those were our lastest 3 reads, but here's some of the book club faves and recommendations over the years:

• The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Nifenneger
• The Cultural Creatives - Paul Ray & Sherry Ruth Anderson
• Solar Storms - Linda Hogan
• Out of Africa - Isak Dinesen
• Peace Like a River - Leif Enger
• To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
• Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold
• Empire Falls - Richard Russo
• A Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin
• Ahab's Wife - Sena Jeter Naslund
• Sister of My Heart - Chitra Divakaruni
• The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
• A Soldier of the Great War - Mark Helprin
• Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Read away - get your own group together to talk, laugh, and add depth to your life. And, post a comment about any book recommendations you have.