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