October Newsletter

Hi All,

Wednesday's meeting to discuss The Girl in the Green Glass Mirror was very successful.  We rated the book a 2.8 with our new and improved (?) rating system.  (See below)  A big shout out to Jackie for hosting, to Jen for doing a terrific job of facilitating the discussion and for our snack volunteers.  Everyone was SO GLAD to see Terry there.

Next up is The River of Doubt by Candace Millard.  This account of Theodore Roosevelt's journey down a uncharted tributary of the Amazon is our co-ed book club read for 2015.  The meeting is at 6:15 on Friday, December 4th at my house.  We will be having substantial appetizers before the discussion and dessert after it.  Ken Kellner has graciously agreed to steer the discussion.  A sign-up sheet was passed around on Wednesday.  If you did not sign up, you may contact me via email and fill in a slot for an appetizer (most needed), a dessert or a pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc. 

Attached to this email you will find a summary of our recently created rating guidelines which are designed to more accurately reflect the differences between books our group really loves and those that are just OK by fulling utilizing the range from 1-5 and working off 3.0 being an average book.  Also you will find a super list of helpful hints for discussion leaders compiled by Jill.  Both of these documents are also available on the blog.  That address again is www.crbc.blogspot.com.

That's it for now.  Where did October go?

Jan

September Newsletter

Hello Book Clubbers,

A big thanks to Tara (and Nikki) for hosting our meeting last week. Jackie tried to get a good discussion going on The Girl on the Train, but we found it a little difficult. The overall rating was a 3.2, with most of us agreeing that this book was more of an enjoyable beach read rather than a piece of fine literature. 

Actually, our discussion and rating of this book led to an interesting and productive discussion regarding how and why we instituted the rating system and what the rating scale means. Here's what came out of it:

• We instituted the practice of going around rating the book to insure that each and every voice in the group was at least heard regarding their opinion of the
  book. When the suggestion was made that we just go around and say what we felt, we remembered that many of us share our book club's reading list with other avid readers we know, even other book clubs. Having some sort of historic quantitative assessment of our past reads can help others looking at our list pick out the ones that resonated with our group and might be worth their consideration 
  
  
• So, what do those numbers actually mean? We spoke of the fact that there is sort of a group resistance to give a book anything much lower than a 3, especially in the context of others in the group ranking it higher before your
  turn. Grace pointed out that the result of this is that there is such a small difference between books we loved (To Kill a Mockingbird for example) and books we were lukewarm about or didn't care for. We also discussed the fact that some books might be page-turners and enjoyable, but the writing style might not be memorable. How does one compare a classic work of literature to a young adult novel or a mass-market sensation? 
  
  
• As a result of the above discussion, we briefly entertained the possibility of giving each book 2 ratings: one for quality of writing and general worthwhileness and one for pure enjoyability. Sort of like gymnasts and skaters get scores for technical merit and artistic creativity. This idea was rejected on the basis of just making things more complicated. Instead, we agreed that we would rework our rating system to utilize more of the range of our 1-5 scale so that we can easily see and have others interpret our opinions of the books we have read. I agreed to come up with a sort of suggested guideline for what the numbers mean between now and our next meeting, but for now please consider that 2.5 is an average book. Anything below average will be ranked lower and above average, higher. I think we had all been stuck around 3-3.5 for an average book before. 
  
  We also had further discussion regarding method of selecting books. Those of you who read the last email carefully will remember that there was some concern about how we rush through the selection process in an environment where it is tough to see. Here is what we resolved on that front:
  

• We will move the selection meeting to someone’s house next year. I have had a couple of volunteers, but in an effort to try to spread out the work load, I have some checking with people to do before we decided where to have it.
  
  
• The suggestion was made to consider picking a genre and sort of permanently assigning it to each month to help insure a more balanced schedule. (For example, October might be psycho thriller month, etc.) This idea was nixed again on the basis of creating more club housekeeping. Since we couldn’t even come up with suggestions for our “long classic” read this year, I am reluctant to try to further define our choices. The club needs to be able to respond to what is “hot”, but we definitely need to do a better job in expanding the breadth of our selections.
  
  
• We decided to try this idea to help us all give adequate consideration and input to our planning. Your ideas for the year will be given to me at or before the summer meeting. I (or perhaps Tara) will generate a list of the potential selections with links to the book descriptions and reviews on Amazon. You will then have ample time to review the options. Selection night will still be the time for voting and pairing hosts, leaders and dates with choices. We will have to decide if we can pull off some sort of method for people not present to have a say as well. 
  
  
  
  Thank you for your patience while Jill and I reworked the email list and our delivery of attachments. As I mentioned the other night, it is really helpful if you take the time to review book club correspondence and respond if we ask for feedback such as when Jill sent out an email asking for you to confirm receiving emails and whether or not you could open the attachments. 
  
  Many of you have sensed that my role in organizing our group is wearing a little thin. I certainly have appreciated those of you who have stepped up to help with some of the load. Jill, Grace and Tara have helped (or offered to going forward) with some of the behind-the-scenes logistics and others have offered to host or lead multiple times per year. Thank you! At the meeting, I also mentioned that there is no need to involve me as the middleman in all book club matters. If you need to trade with someone as a snack person, get the word out about some upcoming event or anything else, having the list of everyone’s contact info should help make that easier. 
  
  Along those lines, we agreed that the hostess can send a reminder to the group the week before the meeting if she likes. Don’t forget to RSVP to our hostess in plenty of time before the date. If you have signed up to bring a snack or wine, there is no need to RSVP. In the event you find yourself not able to attend after all, please let the hostess know and drop off your contribution or make arrangements to have someone else take your place. 
    
  
  

I am attaching a new version of the schedule to this email. Due to a conflict, we had to flip flop the January and February meetings. Everything just swapped: hostess, leader and book. The dates of the two meetings remain the same. I have also filled in a few of the slots that were still open. 

In other news, we were informed that neighbor and former club member, Ann Britain recently underwent another serious back surgery. Please keep her in your thoughts.

Shirley informed us that there is an October Fest in the works for October 17th. I was unable to attend the live band event Saturday night, but I am sure those who did had a blast. How great it is to have our social committee coming up with some new ideas for our community! 

I am planning on having my usual Halloween Open House on October 31st. Basically, you bring something to eat and what you want to drink. If you have kids, make 8 Woodstock your last stop and come in (kids too) for some refreshment. If you don’t have kids and want to come over here, you may arrive anytime after 6:30 PM. Since Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, the suggestion was made to make the party “Costumes Encouraged”. My granddaughter suggested, “Prizes would help “encourage people to dress up, Gramma.” 
This wise 8-year-old suggested funniest and scariest as the two categories. Oh BOY!

Our next meeting is at 7 PM on Wednesday, October 28th. The book is The Girl in the Green Glass Mirror by Elizabeth Cooke writing as Elizabeth McGregor. As an FYI, if purchasing the book in paperback from Amazon, it is only available through third party sellers, but there are some choices there with free shipping. Jackie is our hostess that night. 
Please RSVP to her. Volunteers are:
Appetizers: Carol and Grace
Desserts: Marilyn and Nikki
Wine: Diane, Barb, Jen, Marty and Kathy

At that meeting, we will pass around a sign up for our co-ed night on Friday, December 4th. I am still in the process of trying to recruit one of the guys to jump-start the discussion.
Sorry this is another long email read. It seems we are always working to try to improve our club and that results in a lot to say.
Jan

2015-2016 CRBC Calendar

	BOOK	AUTHOR	HOST	LEADER
10/28/15	Girl in the Green Glass Mirror	Elizabeth Cooke Writing as Elizabeth McGregor	Jackie	Jen
12/04/15	The River of Doubt	Candice Millard	Jan	-----
1/13/16	The Cruelest Miles	Gay and Lanie Salisbury	Diane	Diane &  Jill G
2/17/16	House Girl	Tara Conklin	Barb	Marilyn
3/23/16	Vanishing Acts What Alice Forgot	Jodi Picoult Liane Moriarty	Tara	Marty & Tara
4/20/16	Our Souls at Night	Kent Haruf	Carol	Jen
5/18/16	Awakenings	Oliver Sacks	Sue Kellner	Beth
6/15/16	The Unlikely Pilgramage of Harold Fry	Rachel Joyce	Grace	Jill G
July/August 2016	The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair	Joel Decker	-----	TBD
9/14/16	ANNUAL SELECTION NIGHT	-----	-----	Jan/Jill
9/28/16	The Little Paris Bookshop	Nina George	Shirley	Donna

Offerings from this year's Selection Meeting...

2015-2016 Selected Books	Author
Girl in the green Glass Mirror	Elizabeth McGregor
Our Souls at Night	Kent Haruf
Little Paris Bookshop	Nina George
Awakenings	Oliver Sacks
The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic	Gay Salisbury & Laney Salisbury
What Alice Forgot	Liane Moriarty
Vanishing Acts	Jodi Picoult
House Girl	Tara Conklin
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry	Rachel Joyce
The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair	Joel Dicker
Not Selected Books	Author
Hearts in Atlantis	Stephen King
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail	Cheryl Strayed
The Lives they Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic	Darby Penney & Peter Stastny
The Silent Wife	A.S.A. Harrison
Bean Trees	Barbara Kingsolver
Pigs in Heaven	Barbara Kinsolver
The Last Word	Paul Combs
Writer in Residence	Paul Combs
Dying to be Me	Anita Moorjani
Careless People	Sarah Churchwell
What She Left Behind	Ellen Marie Wiseman
The Pecan Man	Cassie Dandridge Selleck
The Chaperone	Laura Moriarty
The 19th Wife: A Novel	David Ebershoff
The Life of Pi	Yann Martel
The Good Neighbor	AJ Banner
Wool	Hugh Howey
Co-Ed Book	Author
The Boys in the Boat:  Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics	Daniel James Brown

UPDATE: Annual Selection Meeting - Guidelines

Hello Book Clubbers!
The following are some guidelines to help you prepare to the annual Selection Meeting.


On the night of the meeting, bring a pad and pen, you'll likely want to take notes as the books are discussed.  We'll all have a chance to vote once everyone has given a description of her book(s).

Please use the following for each book you plan to recommend to the group.

Preparing for the meeting:

• It's suggested that you recommend books that you or a close relative/friend have personally read. Don't necessarily base your recommendation on Amazon reviews or 3rd-party referrals.
• Be sure the book is available in paperback (not hard-cover only or out-of-print).
• Be sure the book is available in audio format.
• CO-ED Books - don't forget to bring suggestions of books that our guys might enjoy reading, too. We'll choose the large-group book this night, too.
• Bring the book with you - OR - Print out a summary from the Internet or book seller (with cost information, if possible).
• BOOK EXCHANGE - Clean out your shelves of those books you're looking to "re-home". Bring them with you the night of the selection meeting to exchange for some "new" ones!

At the meeting:

• Give a brief review of the book (story line, # pages, why it would be good for Book Club) you're recommending.
• Listen & take notes about the other suggestions.
• "Vote" for your favorite(s) using our pennies/chips method
• Exchange your "old" books for "new" ones at the book exchange!

Thanks for all your suggestions & preparation for the selection meeting... till then, happy reading!