February Meeting

Since Tina, our fearless leader, did not make it this time, we don't have our group picture. This was Tina's first meeting to miss.

The books for the next two meetings are:

For March:




For April:

January Meeting

We had a small group for our January meeting, but as always, we had a good time. I'm not sure we even discussed the book! There was a little mention here and there that most of the people that read it really liked it, but we got to busy talking about "life" to have an in depth discussion.

We decided to put individual people in charge of each months book selection and discussion. That way Tina won't have to work so hard!

Carol was put in charge of our book selection for this month, and she chose "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. She will lead the discussion for this book in February.

Fa La La Christmas Party

We had our Christmas party last Monday night at Tina's house and we had a "Snuggie" good time! We will definitely remember this party as the year of the Snuggie and the year that Carolynn opened all of the gifts. I think we all had a great time and loved our gifts.

Wasn't it great to see Tina's house? Thank you Tina for having us over and your warm hospitality.

We didn't even talk about the book for December, but we did choose the first book of the year. We are reading "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein.

We will meet again on Tuesday, January 5th at 6:30 at Panera Bread.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

November Meeting

We had a good time discussing our Mitch Albom Book.

For December, we have chosen "Christmas List" by Richard Paul Evans.

We are changing things up for our December Meeting. Tina is hosting us at her house for a Christmas party. Notice the change of date - it will be on Monday, December 7th at 6:30. We will send out a reminder closer to the date.

We are going to have a "white elephant" gift exchange. Bring a wrapped book, or any other item that has to do with reading (light, glasses, bookmark, magnifying glass, etc.). (Around $15).

Also, please bring an appetizer or dessert to share.

Hope everyone can make it.

October Meeting

We had a small group Tuesday, but had a lot of fun. We had very little discussion about our book, but we had lots of laughs about what is going on in our lives. Most of us would not classify the book as one of our favorites. The word that was used most often was BORING!

Hopefully we have chosen a better selection for this month. We are reading "Have A Little Faith" by Mitch Albom. I don't even think I am going to try to contact Mitch. I think he is a little out of our league, but you never know. We have had some really great authors in high up places call us.

Another suggestion for a book for your general reading is "Isaac's Storm" by Erik Larson. It is about the devastating Galveston storm from the 1950's. Several people had either heard about it or read it, and thought it was a great book. I think we decided that it might be too heavy to read during the holidays.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, November 3rd. Get your book, read it and save the date on your calendar.

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!