Hello all,
I was sad to miss our April meeting. You almost got a call in from me, though. I had to do quite a bit of work while I was in London, and the easiest time was late at night after Ray went to sleep and I could sit in the living room of our flat and get a lot done. That Monday night I was working until 2:30am and my laptop continues to retain it's Denver local time. I saw that it was 6:30pm (1:30am London time) and toyed with the idea of facetiming Jeff. I'd forgotten most of the book, and didn't want everyone to think I couldn't take a month off, so I kept working.
Dave did a great job of leading and note-taking in my absence, and I have inserted his reporting below. I wanted to make a few announcements first, though.
This month we will meet on Monday, May 23rd to discuss Vanishing Games by Roger Hobbs. I am leading and Amy is providing snacks. Amy, let me know if something comes up and you can't complete your mission.
Raj is going out of town and has to give up her June snack bringing, but it actually works out because we are homeless in June. The library won't be able to host us because of the switchover to the new building. Kim Lundquist had stepped in to save the day and will be hosting us for the June 27th meeting where we will discuss Kim's favorite author, Lee Child. I am down to lead, but if anyone else wants to lead that one just let me know. The reason Raj not bringing snacks works is because we will do a wine and appetizer night at Kim's. Please bring a dish to pass (fear not, Oreo cookies and potato chips are completely acceptable) or a bottle of wine. Kim, is it ok if we meet at 6pm instead of 6:30 to allow for mixing and mingling? It will be our summer mixer, we might even make the idea a tradition like our offsite holiday party.
Kim's address is XXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX, XX XXXXX. I will put a reminder in the May meeting notes as well.
I am meeting with the head librarian before the May meeting to discuss the new library and how it will all work. I will have a report at the beginning of the May meeting.
Dave's Report:
We welcomed two new members to the group – Barb Yates and Lisa Ballenger. Hopefully, we didn’t scare them away.
Overall, the group liked the book “The Stranger” by Harlan Coben. The highest scores were 9, the lowest was a 6 from Barb Yates the newbie, the next lowest were some 7s and the average was 8.06. In case you haven’t guessed, I used to be an accountant. Not a lot of enthusiasm for slap votes, so I didn’t write them down.
We had a number of people who kept thinking right up to the end of the book that the wife, Corinne, was still alive. Some thought it was a little “draggy” (Kim) and quite a few didn’t think it was the best book he has written. Raj thought it was like “Gone Girl” but with a much worse ending. (I personally think Gone Girl stunk and had a worse ending – he was such a wimp). Barb didn’t like it as well as the group, but she had focused on the extorters and the unintended consequences of good intentions rather than what happened to Corinne. Judy gave it a 9, but was a little harsher than Barb on the extorters – her comment was “Who made them God?”. She would have probably given the book a 10, but I made the mistake of telling her that Chris Christie is Coben’s best friend ever since childhood. She still loves his books in spite of that. Jay also gave it a 9 and was sucked in completely once he realized the made up town was, in reality, the next town over from where he grew up. He has even been to the restaurant in the book.
Our snack was provided by the lovely and talented Peg, a brownie like cake with ganache (you know, that dark chocolate stuff, right Judy?) and a design that didn’t quite stick to the ganache. It was supposed to be crossed lacrosse sticks. In honor of the setting of the book, the leader, yours truly, even wore his Pensacola Patriots Lacrosse team t-shirt, the ownership of which was the result of his grandson’s fund raising effort. (cost me $20 for the stupid thing).
Thank you Dave and Peg. See you all on the 23rd.
Kerry