Chat With Juliette Fay - September Meeting

How lucky are the Fa La La's? I am amazed every time we get to talk to an author. It is great to hear about their book and the characters from their perspective.

Talking with Juliette Fay was every bit as fun as her book. She had such an outgoing, bubbly personality and was full of information about her characters - her friends. I think it is so neat for her that her first novel was picked up by Target as one of their featured books of the year.

This is a book that everyone really enjoyed. One thing that is fun to me, is to talk about how each of us imagine the characters in our mind. Then it is fun to "cast" them as if there is a movie in the works. It was fun to hear who Juliette thought would play the characters. I think "Shelter Me" would make a great movie.

Juliette, we are all anxiously awaiting your next book. Thank you for taking time away from your family and busy schedule to visit with us.

Next month, we will be reading "While I'm Falling" by Laura Moriarty. Happy Reading!

Book Reading List

Liz Rosenberg, author of many books including last months book, "Home Repair" was so kind to take the time out of her busy schedule to make a list for us of some of her favorite reads.

Here is the note from Liz:

Dear Fa La La's,

Thanks for bringing me into your lives. It sounds like the kind of book club I'd want to join.

I've been thinking about what books you might possibly like, and came up with a few ideas:

1) IN DEFENSE OF FOOD by Michael Pollan (a possible alternate choice is his book THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA.) In Defense of Food is just a great, funny, well-written social history of food and our own ideas about nutrition. I bet it would provoke some lively discussions. It's non-fiction of course, but as well written and engaging as any novel.

2) THE HOUSE ON BEARTOWN ROAD by Elizabeth Cohen--- admittedly another book about my region of the country, also shows up as THE FAMILY ON BEARTOWN ROAD but it's the same book with a different title. It's also memoir, the story of one woman's year when her husband walked out on her, leaving her to contend with her aging dad who had Alzheimer's and her one year old daughter. It's a book about acquiring and forgetting memories, and also about family and responsibility. It's a very honest book about being a mother. which brings me to:

3) THE GLASS CASTLE by Jeanette Wallis, absolutely gripping memoir about this woman's childhood with two highly dysfunctional parents who end up homeless. Despite how grim this sounds, there is a lot of humor in this as well as pathos. I could not put it down, and when I've taught it, people just adore it.

4) Elizabeth Berg's OPEN HOUSE. I know this is not one of her new books, but this one to me had just the right blend of humor and pathos,. so if you enjoyed Home Repair and the Guernsey book you guys might just like this one--I'm also fond of Anne Tyler's Digging to America, and I like it that the heroine is a young grandmother. It also deals with some issues of adoption, of family connections, old world vs new world.

Can you guess I am not an enormous fan of new fiction? Given my druthers I'll re-read The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty or The Movie Goer. Of course--if you ever decide to read poetry I'll have LOTS of suggestions, starting with a posthumous book by my beloved friend Jason Sjinder, called STUPID HOPE., But it is a very dark journey--beautiful, beautiful but heartbreaking book about illness.

I send you all my fondest regards, and please, if any of you don't mind writing your thoughts about Home Repair, on places like Goodreads and Amazon and B & N.com-- reader reviews really DO make a difference!

You inspire me to want to keep writing, and to keep trying to writer better novels.

Liz Rosenberg

Thank you Liz, from the Fa La La's!

August Meeting

For all of you girls that didn't make it, if we look a little sweaty, it is because the room was about 95 degrees. It was a hot night.

We had a good time discussing "The Beach House". Unfortunately, we didn't have Jane Green on the phone with us to discuss it. Most of us really liked it and thought it was just a good, fun, summer read.

We chose the book for next month. We are reading "Shelter Me" by Juliette Fay. I have read it and really enjoyed it. I hope you will too.

Last,but not least, we are giving a "shout out" to Travis. He has faithfully taken most of the pictures on this blog. Thanks Travis!

July Meeting

We are getting really spoiled. We have talked to several authors about their books. What a treat it was to talk to Liz Rosenberg. We were so privileged to get to talk to her about her first "adult" book, "Home Repair."

Liz has such an outgoing, charismatic personality. Now we know where so many of the personalities for her characters came from. After our phone call, we continued our discussion for about 30 more minutes. She gave us such insight into the characters that we couldn't stop talking about them. It makes you see them as "real" people. One thing that we have learned from the authors is that the characters really become their friends.

Liz, thank you so much for contacting us. It was such a pleasure to visit with you.

For next month, we have chosen an easy summer read, "The Beach House" by Jane Green. Enjoy and we will see everyone on August 4th.

Movie Night

Monday night, a few of the book club members went to see "My Sister's Keeper". It is too bad that more of us couldn't be there, but from what I hear, it was a great movie. We thought it would be fun to do together since that was one of our books that we reviewed.

We will meet again next Tuesday. I have been communicating with Liz Rosenberg and we are trying to arrange a phone call from her to discuss "Home Repair". It is so fun to get to talk with such great authors.

June Meeting - With Kathryn Stockett

Are we the greatest Book Club or what??? We have just celebrated our first anniversary together and we have met several very famous authors. How fun is that?

Last night we had the privilege of talking with New York Times Best Selling Author, Kathryn Stockett. "The Help" is her first novel. She spent 5 years writing it and was rejected by 45 publishers before it was finally accepted. It appears that a movie is in the works.

I think this is probably the first book that everyone has bought and attempted to read. Not everyone finished, but most did.

We had a great time last night. We are busting at the seams. We may have to choose another meeting place if we continue to grow at this rate.

The book for next month is "Home Repair" by Liz Rosenberg.

MAY 2009 ... HAPPY ANNIVERSARY FALALA BOOK CLUB!

• I can't believe it's been a year! Here is the picture and cake from our May meeting.

• Our May book, "My Sister's Keeper," was a good book for a great discussion. I hope you are looking forward to the movie ... we will be planning a field trip! I think everyone is anxious to see how the movie ends ... since "they" say it's different than the book. There were quite a few of us that did NOT like how the book ended. It will be interesting to see what happens in the movie.

• Our next meeting is TUESDAY, JUNE 2nd. For our June book we have chosen "The Help." The author is Kathryn Stockett. I can't wait to read this book. The reviews say it's a "can't put it down" book ... my favorite kind!

• Also, we may have some exciting news concerning a guest at our June meeting ... stay tuned for more info ... suffice it to say, you better get started reading!