October 2004 - Present

Alright ladies, this is what I've come up with so far. Please go through and create a new post for the times that you hosted. (You can make the date retro active by going to "post & comment options at the bottom of the compose box next to keyboard shortcuts.) Let's let Lili post for "The Waiting Years" as she hasn't hosted yet. Once the original post is made, anyone can add their own two cents by posting a "comment."

2 May 2006 (Kate)

• "The Complete Stories of Truman Capote"

no March meeting due to conflicts

11 April 2006 (Betsy)

• The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi (March 2006)
• Announcements: Brookes goes to Brazil for 7 weeks, Amy goes to Spain for 1 year, Suse goes to Germany for 1 year

21 February 2006 (Bridget)

• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• Kate’s first meeting
• Kim's last meeting
• Surprise visit from Liz Peralta

19 January 2006 (Heidi)

• “A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey
• Kim’s last meeting
• Bridget let’s us know about her international student

12 December 2005 (Brookes)

• Movie Night – Born into Brothels
• Amy Amago’s first meeting

22 November 2005 (Fiddler’s Hearth)

• “How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents” by Julia Alvarez

20 October 2005 (Kim)

• “The Line of Beauty” by Alan Hollinghurst
• Last meeting at Camp Madron – we got to meet Bill!
• Lili’s first meeting

22 September 2005 (Betsy)

• Handful of summer suggested reads: “Let’s Don’t Go to the Dogs Tonight,” “Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini
• Megan had baby Amelia!

Time off for the summer

May? April?

10 March 2005 (Suse)

• What the heck did we read?
• Liz’s last meeting complete with southern themed dinner food. I think the highlight was the peanut butter pie that Liz brought that never quite set.

8 February 2005 (Megan)

• What book was this?
• All I remember is the baked brie Megan served. Delicious!

January? (Did this meeting exist or did we just fly into Feb?)

• Sleep Toward Heaven, by Amanda Eyre Ward

2 December 2004 (Brookes?)

• Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi

4? November 2004 (Kim)

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon

7 October 2004 (Bridget’s old house)

• Confederacy of dunces - John Kennedy Toole
• Brookes’ first meeting

A little history . . .

This group of women started gathering long before I (Brookes) arrived on the scene, in fact even before I came to South Bend. Members have come and gone and like the books, they are remembered fondly in our hearts and on our shelves.

Today, after I sent the girls the preliminary blog and a draft for the next post, Kim shot me back an email:
"I went through my bookshelf and came up with this list of books – I know this is a crazy list – but since Liz and Cleo and I started the bookclub these are books from way back then – unfortunately I can’t remember the dates - sorry:"

Books read before October 2004:
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
O Pioneers! Willa Cather
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
You are Not a Stranger Here, by Adam Haslett
Devil in the White City
The Danish Girl
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
The Prodigal Summer – Barbara Kingsolver
Disobedience – Jane Hamilton
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
White Oleander – Janet Fitch
Daughter of Fortune – Isabel Allende
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
The Short History of A Prince – Jane Hamilton
The Red Tent – Anita Dramant
Stone From the River – Ursula Hegi
Shopgirl – Steve Martin
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
I Know This Much is True – Wally Lamb
She’s Come Undone – Wally Lamb
Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri
Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carvey
Bastard Out of Carolina – Dorothy Allison
Bel Canto – Ann Patchett
The Map of Love – Andaf Sorreif
House of Sand and Fog – Andre Dubus III
Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner
Empire Falls – Richard Russo
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain – Robert Olen Butler

We have arrived!

This is us.

In order to remeber all the fun we have together and the books that have marked our lives, we have begun a blog.