Any fan of HCG knows how much I love book club. I wasn’t able to post about all of the books we read this year, so I wanted to end the year with an ode to book club’s favorite reads of 2011 (in perfect HCG fashion, I’m a few days late). Also, I’m pretty obsessed with The Hunger Games, so I was pumped for an excuse to write about the trilogy.

To help with this post, I took a quick survey of my book club’s members to see which books were most loved last year. Some members with excess free time on their hands didn’t respond as quickly as I would’ve liked (MR), so I had to prompt her them. By a landslide, The Hunger Games won. We read all three Hunger Games books in November, and we quickly learned why so many people were taken by the technically “young adult” novels. It seems like lately “young adult” is code for “awesome”. Since November, I’ve basically made it my life’s mission to convince everyone I know to read these books. As I finished each one, I handed the books over to Joe and he promptly began reading them. Joe isn’t a big reader, but he tore through THG. He is so excited for the first movie to be released in March, he suggested we sleep outside the movie theater the night it premieres. When I discover someone (a stranger or a friend) hasn’t read THG, I suggest that person immediately ceases whatever activity she is doing and starts reading these books. They’re that good.

In distant second but still widely adored by our members was Tina Fey’s hilarious book Bossypants. As a Delaware County, PA native, I, and most other women I know, am generally smitten by Tina Fey. As CF predicted, this book made me feel embarrassed to read it in public. Before I started reading it, CF tried to read aloud portions on the beach in Cape May, and I thought I was going to have to muzzle her to prevent her from spoiling the entire thing from me. Much like THG, once you read Bossypants, all you want to do is talk to someone else who read the book about your favorite parts.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (our May selection) was another favorite of 2011. Ever since author Jamie Ford became the second author to comment on a Here Comes Gina book club post, he has been held in high regard on this site. We lost book club member Torrey to Boston after this meeting – R.I.P. Torrey.

Finally, many of our members (myself included) enjoyed What Alice Forgot (our September selection) as evidenced by the length of my HCG post about the book. I’ve since made that warm apple cobbler recipe three times, and it’s always a hit. Have you tried it yet Maureen Maxwell? Due to end-of-summer vacations, we took August off – hence the appropriate Google image of a sun.

We’ve set the entire 2012 book club calendar and chosen the first two books, and I’m hosting in April. As I’ve told Joe, that gives us more than four months to refinish our floors, do some more painting and make other necessary home improvements. Where would our house be without book club as a deadline?

Happy 2012 to all!

xo,
HCG

Confirmed: Rooney Mara will make an incredible Lisbeth Salander. Mara has transformed into the central character of one of the most highly anticipated movies in years and one of the best selling books in the world: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. HCG is a huge fan of the entire Millennium series, and we are unbelievably excited for the release of the U.S. film version of the first book. We recently saw a preview of Dragon Tattoo at the movies, and it exceeded our expectations.

Vogue successfully styled Mara for its November issue in everything from Ralph Lauren (on the cover), Vera Wang (below), Bottega Veneta, Calvin Klein, Marchesa and Alexander Wang. The end result is a stunningly beautiful and interesting spread that further intensifies our curiosity with an actress who is about to get a hell of a lot more famous. The accompanying article is a terrific read which details the exhausting process of casting Lisbeth and reveals that, as great as she was in an audition, Scarlett Johansson just wasn’t the right fit – obviously. What would the wardrobe people have done with Scarlett’s huge chest in the first film before Lisbeth gets tasteful and expensive breast implants? Taped them down?
If you haven’t read the Millennium Trilogy yet, you really should hurry up. Don’t worry, you still have time.

Images via Vogue

Book club has returned! After taking August off to accommodate intense travel schedules, we postponed our September meeting two weeks and just met this past Thursday. Karen and her newly renovated kitchen hosted our first autumn gathering, and the meeting was a spectacular fall event. Karen chose What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty, which was featured in the HCG 2011 Summer Book Guide, as her selection, and the novel was thoroughly enjoyed by our book club. A synopsis via GoodReads:

Alice is twenty-nine. She is whimsical, optimistic and adores sleep, chocolate, her ramshackle new house and her wonderful husband Nick. What’s more, she’s looking forward to the birth of her first baby. But now Alice has slipped and hit her head in her spin class and everyone’s telling her she’s misplaced the last ten years of her life.

In fact, it would seem that Alice is actually thirty-nine and now she loves schedules, expensive lingerie, caffeine and manicures. She has three children and the honeymoon is well and truly over for her and Nick. In fact, he looks at her like she’s his worst enemy. What’s more, her beloved sister Elisabeth isn’t speaking to her either. And who is this ‘Gina ‘everyone is so carefully trying not to mention?

Alice isn’t sure that she likes life ten years on. Every photo is another memory she doesn’t have and nothing makes sense. Just how much can happen in a decade? Has she really lost her lovely husband for ever?

Imagine forgetting the last 10 years of your life! Seriously, think about it. 10 years ago HCG was a 19-year-old college sophomore with blonde hair and a new obsession with flat irons. How shocked I would be to wake up in 2011 as a 29-year-old brunette with a super hot husband, a decent luxury handbag collection and a scooter! When Alice awoke at the gym, she had no idea she had three children much less did she know their names, genders or ages. She had never heard of “Googling” something. She was shocked when her husband cursed her off on the phone. She had no idea why she was at the gym since 29-year-old Alice hated exercise. The entire situation is so mind boggling.

After that fateful spin class, Alice struggles to regain her memory in the weeks that follow. Slowly but surely, Alice remembers bits and pieces of the last decade. Although some book club members felt frustrated by how Alice would remember a tiny fragment of her life and then blindly wonder what else happened, I enjoyed how the reader remembered and figured things out right along with Alice. I especially loved how when Alice awoke at the gym, she was skinnier, richer and had much better clothing than she did when she was 29. Those developments made me excited to become 39.

What Alice Forgot offered a plethora of discussion topics for our book club. For example, is a 10-year memory loss even medically possible? According to Christa, a recent ABC News segment about a man who lost his entire memory confirms it is. We still had questions about the medical plausibility of Alice’s condition, though, and we wished our resident book club neurologist Torrey hadn’t moved to Boston right when we needed her most. Alice’s transformation from an easygoing, optimistic and funny 29-year-old newlywed to an irritable, over-scheduled and relatively bitchy 39-year-old mother of three got HCG shaking in my boots. I wondered if anyone else shared my concerns, so I posed the following question to book club: raise your hand if this book made you fear what kind of mother (and woman) you might become. Hands (some reluctantly) went up around the table. It was so easy to see how motherhood and marriage changed Alice for the worse, and none of us want that for ourselves. All in all, What Alice Forgot was a lighthearted, entertaining and humorous read that easily sustained our attention while giving us enough to think about and discuss. Kudos to Karen for a great choice!

Karen’s fall-inspired meeting menu included a delectable butternut squash risotto with homemade cornbread accompanied by a light fall salad provided by MR. KB’s lemon ginger cookies and HCG’s warm apple cobbler (which, not to brag, was incredible) helped to end the evening with added sweetness. Special book club congrats to Meg and KB who both rescued dogs over the summer. Meg is the proud owner of Cooper, an adorable shih tzu, and KB recently welcomed Guinness, a spunky labradoodle. Welcome to the book club family, Cooper and Guinness!

Ah, how we love GP! HCG’s beloved Gwyneth covers the September issue of Elle which quickly convinced us that this is one September magazine we’ll definitely buy (the promised 556 pages of fall fashion didn’t hurt). As much as we love magazines, the ability to read the bulk of the articles online and see all the photos sometimes kills the buzz of actually buying the magazine. But there’s nothing better than fashion magazines in the late summer/early fall, so it doesn’t take much to convince us to buckle around this time of year.

In the especially candid article (snippets available here), GP discusses the usual topics – working out, keeping her marriage private, her friendship with Beyonce and Jay-Z – with added transparency. Here’s a little eye candy for all the other GP fans out there (we mean you MR):

Images via Elle

Here Comes Gina is exceptionally proud to present our 2011 Summer Book Guide! Our 2010 Summer Book Guide was created upon the request of friend and reader A. Lud, and we realized we’d have to do a 2011 guide when people told us they were waiting for us to post it (and of course we were intending on doing an annual summer book guide anyway). While most of the books on this year’s list are new or relatively new releases, we’ve included a few oldies we love as well. The books in our 2011 guide are narrated by a 5-year-old, a dog and even Death – there’s something for everyone! We hope you have the chance to bury your head in one of these books while lounging on a beach this summer. And CDW, we expect to see you searching the aisles at your local library with this guide printed and highlighted. Happy reading to all!

Room by Emma Donoghue
We won’t beat around the bush: Room is incredibly disturbing. But it’s also deeply powerful and resonates with anyone who reads it. Yours truly chose Room as our book club’s February selection and it sparked great conversation (especially among the mothers in our group). The novel is narrated by 5-year-old Jack whose mother was kidnapped at age 19 and kept hidden and sexually abused in a soundproofed shed in her captor’s backyard for many years. We know the subject matter isn’t the easiest to discuss at a cocktail party, but we promise you Room is worth your while.

About the Author by John Colapinto
About the Author is one of HCG’s longtime favorites by The New Yorker staff writer John Colapinto. This thrilling read tracks the exploits of wannabe author Cal Cunningham suffering from a rough case of writer’s block (sounds crazy so far, right?). Cal discovers his law student roommate Stewart has written a novel based on Cal’s life and, when Stewart conveniently dies in a bicycle accident, Cal pawns Stewart’s book off as his own and shit gets crazy. So many HCG books are geared toward the ladies, but this one is gender neutral; all the guys we know love it, too. If you’re looking for an exciting, quick novel you can read in one weekend on the beach, About the Author is it.

Beneath a Starlet Sky by Amanda Goldberg and Ruthanna Khalighi
Set in the Cannes film festival, Beneath a Starlet Sky is packed with entertainment and fashion name-dropping and has enough celebrity gossip and scandal to appeal to even the most fervent of celebrity gossip junkies. We won’t even give you a synopsis because the first line of this description mostly says it all. Basically, we needed some books in this guide to balance out Room and the pedophile priest book Faith (see below). We think this fits the bill.

Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon
Another old HCG favorite originally published in 1991, Boy’s Life is a magical read set in the Zephyr, Alabama hometown of 12-year-old Cory Mackenson. One cold spring morning in the early 1960s, Cory accompanies his father his route as a milkman when they see a car drive into a lake with a dead man handcuffed to the steering wheel. Cory’s father’s failed rescue attempt haunts him as he and Cory struggle to discover the secret behind the horrific murder. Boy’s Life is an all-time favorite book of countless readers, and we have never met a person who wasn’t as enamored by it as we were.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Our May book club pick, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet was loved by all of our members. Henry Lee, a 12-year-old Chinese boy living in Seattle’s Chinatown during the early years of America’s involvement in World War II, struggles to fit in at the white school where he has a scholarship, is constantly bullied and is forced to serve lunch in the cafeteria. When Keiko Okabe, a Japanese girl, arrives at his school also on a scholarship, the two begin a sweet romance and enduring friendship despite the disapproval of Henry’s anti-Japanese father. When Keiko and her family are sent to a Japanese internment camp, your heart will break along with Henry’s. But don’t worry; like all good love stories, this one has an upside.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Like all young adult novels that are recommended to us, this one comes from our sister CF who absolutely loved this sci-fi trilogy. This novel is the first in three installments, and all are equally gripping and fascinating. If you keep up with celebrity gossip like we do, you probably already know that the movie version of this franchise is currently being filmed (starring Jennifer Lawrence in the lead role of Katniss). We’re saving The Hunger Games for our upcoming trip to St. Maarten and we’re hoping it fills the void recently left in our heart by our long delayed completion of the Twilight series.

Bossypants by Tina Fey
If you’re from suburban Philadelphia – especially Delaware County – you probably already love Upper Darby native Tina Fey. Once you read Bossypants, you will wish you were married to her. We made the mistake of reading this book in public and on an airplane, and we found ourselves constantly apologizing to our seatmates for laughing aloud (we tried to stifle it. Then our shoulders just shook and our face turned red). Bossypants is required reading for the entire HCG community.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Ever since he became the first (and only) author to comment on a Here Comes Gina book club post, Garth Stein has been held in the highest regard here. It helps that we absolutely loved his book which is set in Seattle and is narrated by a dog. No, it isn’t weird, and yes, you will laugh a lot (especially when the dog curses). We’ve recommended this book to many friends, and not one complaint has been received. We read it in one six-hour sitting, and we bet you will too. P.S. We love you Garth Stein!

Swim Back to Me by Ann Packer
Comprised of a novella and five short stories mostly set in the San Francisco Bay Area, Swim Back to Me is another fantastic read from the best-selling author or The Dive from Clausen’s Pier. Ann Packer’s stories follow characters suffering from heartbreak and devastation of all types, and each story is equally as gripping as the others. Like many of our most solid book recommendations, this one comes from our friend K. Max.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
Pregnant 29-year-old Alice Mary Love goes to the gym, passes out and wakes up 10 years later. That opening line is enough for us mostly because we’re almost 29 and we go to the gym a lot. No, we’re not pregnant and yes, we do want children eventually. We just aren’t ready yet. When Alice recovers, her life is completely different from how she remembers it. Alice last recalls being happily married, about to give birth to her first child and best friends with her sister. 10 years later, Alice is now on the brink of divorce, has three children and no longer speaks to her sister. We imagine Alice was like, “WTF?”

The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
Since our 2010 summer book guide included Stieg Larsson’s first installment in the Millennium trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, we couldn’t resist including the second installment this year (look for the third book in our 2012 guide). We know many people who couldn’t get through the slow first 100 pages of Dragon Tattoo, but those who did were treated to one hell of a ride. In Fire, readers get more of what gives this series its spark: Lisbeth Salander. Fire remains one of the most thrilling books we’ve ever read, and the ending requires you to immediately locate and begin reading the final Millennium book The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. If you’ve resisted reading this trilogy so far, you should really give in. Maybe the poster of the upcoming U.S. movie of Dragon Tattoo will help convince you to join in the fun.

Faith by Jennifer Haigh
Set in 2002, Faith follows the family of a beloved Boston-area priest who is accused of pedophilia (we never said all of our summer book picks were easy reading). As expected, intense family drama ensues when Father Arthur Breen, the dynamic young pastor of a large parish, is accused of molesting a little boy with whom he has spent a lot of time alone. Father Breen’s devout Irish-Catholic family is horrified at this accusation as they struggle to make sense of it all. Jennifer Haigh’s superb writing will have your attention locked until the last word of this riveting novel.

Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
Recommended by our girl C, Spoiled is the debut novel from the hilarious duo known as The Fug Girls (see: Go Fug Yourself). Molly Dix is an ordinary 16-year-old girl living in suburban Indiana (if her parents were from El Salvador, she would sound like an adolescent MR). When her single mother passes away (similarities to MR end), Molly is shocked to discover that her biological father is world famous movie star Brick Berlin (MR wishes). Molly moves to Southern California and plunges head-first into the deep end of Beverly Hills celebrity life and all the craziness that comes along with it. According to C, this is one of the best beach reads to hit the shelves in quite some time.

Operating Instructions by Ann Lamott
Ann Lamott’s memoir of her first year of raising her son on her own at age 35 covers it all. From finding out that her baby is a boy (and getting used to the idea) to finding out that her best friend and greatest supporter Pam will die of cancer (and not getting used to that idea), Lamott tackles more than just a Diaper Genie and “The Happiest Baby on the Block.” Does Operating Instructions qualify as a parenting book? Maybe. But even if you don’t have children, it doesn’t mean you don’t know any parents (or have parents yourself). Plus, you were once a baby. Reminder: HCG is not pregnant nor are we ready to have a child.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
In A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan tells 13 stories of separate but intertwined characters whose pasts intersect over a period of 40 years in New York, California and Italy. The stories are centered in Bennie, an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Is this book a novel? A collection of short stories? We don’t think it matters, because word on the street is Goon Squad is awesome. The book won a Pulitzer Prize just a few months ago and is currently being adapted into an HBO series.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Technically a young adult novel (who says young adults should get to have all the fun? Don’t they already have it made? When was the last time you heard the voice of a young adult on a two-hour conference call?), The Book Thief is narrated by Death (!). Liesel Meminger is a young foster girl living outside of Munich in Nazi Germany who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing. Liesel quickly discovers she can’t resist stealing books, and soon she is stealing books from everywhere from Nazi book-burnings to the mayor’s wife’s library (even though she can’t read). With the help of her foster father, Liesel learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids, as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. Everyone loves a good Holocaust book (see: Sarah’s Key), but The Book Thief is so much more than just that. People go crazy over it!

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Certain HCG staffers (CF) claim this collection of hilarious essays (many of which appeared originally in The New Yorker and Esquire) is even funnier than Sedaris’s novel Naked, a 2010 HCG summer book guide selection. In Me Talk Pretty One Day, Sedaris recounts much of his North Carolina upbringing where his father Lou, after a failed attempt to get his children to form a jazz combo, insists on boosting David’s career as a performance artist by heckling him from the audience. Smart funny people love David Sedaris so we do too.

Much like the title of May’s book club selection, our May book club meeting was a bittersweet gathering. Our hostess, Torrey, bid farewell to our book club to move to Boston. We’ve all enjoyed Torrey’s contributions to our book club, and we will miss her dearly. The bitterness factor of the evening was heightened when, at the last minute, I was not able to attend book club due to work demands. I handed over to KB (a friend and colleague) what remained of the brownies I baked – 6 of which didn’t make it though the day in my office – and I hung my head in sorrow. It was only the second book club meeting I’d ever missed. When an e-mail arrived later that night detailing “the best book club meeting in history”, HCG morphed into “Female Attorney on the Corner of Bitter and Pissed.” Let’s be honest though, that transformation doesn’t take much. But we’ll get to that. First, a breakdown of the book.

Torrey chose Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford as her book club selection, and everyone loved it. A synopsis:

12-year-old Henry Lee is a first generation Chinese American boy living in Seattle in the 1940s at the height of the war, and Henry’s father is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While on scholarship at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore and bully him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope.

As you can tell from the synopsis, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet has a Romeo and Juliet element that shines a bright light on an otherwise horrifying historical event: the imprisonment of people of Japanese descent during World War II. Ford’s intertwining of personal heartbreak and struggle prevented the historical aspect of the novel from becoming boring. Despite some inaccurate technological references made in 1986, the book smoothly transitioned between the early 1940s and late 1980s. The most heartwarming parts of the novel, unsurprisingly, were those that involved the young love between Henry and Keiko.

Based solely on hearsay for the reasons explained above, I learned that the world’s greatest book club meeting Torrey hosted included a special menu of stir fry, background jazz music (an integral part of the novel) and incredible Chinese-themed favors (a book club first). The Diet Coke and pretzels I ate in my sad office that night while listening to Today’s Big Hits on Yahoo Radio offered little competition. A big farewell to Torrey is in order. We will miss you!

Behold, April’s book club selection! We know, we know – we’re way behind schedule with this one. Between the epic preparations and celebrations involved with DQG’s wedding this past weekend (photos to follow) and our primary employer working us harder than JT worked SNL on Saturday (alright – that’s not possible), we’ve had little time to focus on our beloved HCG. But enough with the excuses. On to the book!

Laura had the honor of hosting our April meeting and chose a very “of the moment” book: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. A synopsis via Publisher’s Weekly/Amazon:

Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black mother of five in Baltimore when she died of cervical cancer in 1951. Without her knowledge, doctors treating her at Johns Hopkins took tissue samples from her cervix for research. They spawned the first viable, indeed miraculously productive, cell line—known as HeLa. These cells have aided in medical discoveries from the polio vaccine to AIDS treatments. Science journalist Rebecca Skloot portrays the devastating impact Henrietta’s death and the eventual importance of her cells had on her husband and children. Letting people and events speak for themselves, Skloot tells a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society’s most vulnerable people.

The Immortal Life was very well received by our book club. It tackled a host of big issues including class, poverty, race and ethics. Many book club members vaguely knew of HeLa cells, and HCG barely remembered learning about them (we credit our Catholic elementary school which also failed to teach us about evolution. But that’s because evolution never happened). As we do with all things medical, we turned to our resident book club doctor Torrey (a neurologist) to get her official take on the topic. Since joining our book club, Torrey has patiently fielded countless medical questions and pleas for details about the fascinating details of her job. Like always, Torrey offered thoughtful insight about this book, and she prompted us to consider why the scientist who was intelligent enough to save Henrietta Lacks’s cells when he cultured them from her cervix shouldn’t be rewarded for his work (oddly enough, that scientist – Dr. George Gey – didn’t make much money off of his work with HeLa cells). Props to Laura for choosing a great read!

As a result of Rebecca Skloot’s popular book, HeLa cells are having a bit of a media moment. The story of Henrietta Lacks was the basis for a 2010 “Law and Order” episode, and HBO and Oprah are working together to produce an HBO film based on the The Immortal Life. We hope the Lacks family will receive some compensation for the HBO film and, in keeping with her usual M.O., we bet Oprah will see to it they do.

Book club congrats are in order to MR who gave birth to her second child, Gabriel Robert McKinney, on March 31, 2011. Gabriel is the third baby born during book club’s tenure, and we look forward to hearing lots of stores about how awesome he is!

Disclaimer: HCG has a borderline inappropriate girl crush on Penélope Cruz. When we heard she was covering the June issue of Vogue, we crossed our fingers and hoped she would look as naturally stunning as generally does – and it worked! We appreciate that with these photos Vogue is admitting, “Hey, we know Penélope Cruz is incredibly beautiful. We’re not going to try to pretend this spread is about the clothes.” Her messy side braid, white lacy Dolce & Gabbana frocks and fresh, light makeup are all divine. Love, love, love. Even though she’s 37, Cruz looks about 16 in this cover photo.

Crazy awesome, right? Check out the cover story (which reveals in part Cruz’s obsession with karaoke bars) here.

Images via Vogue

We really like this May Vogue cover of Reese Witherspoon mostly because of Reese’s sneaky expression and side glance. America’s favorite actress is often photographed with a big, perky smile, and we find this change of pace refreshing and welcome. That said, if we were watching TV with this magazine sitting on our coffee table, we would probably turn it face down to avoid getting freaked out.

For the four people who didn’t already know, Reese is starring alongside Robert Pattinson in the soon-to-be-released film adaption of “Water for Elephants” (an HCG favorite), so a circus-themed photo shoot was clearly necessary. The photos are rather striking:

This last photo is our personal favorite. Who wouldn’t love a photo of herself perched atop an elephant wearing sparkly Dolce & Gabbana shorts and a matching top?

P.S. We just realized the elephant is in every photo except the cover. Girlfriend must be pissed at that slight.

Images via Vogue

Last night I hosted our February book club meeting (!), and the night was magical. After weeks of choosing paint colors for our house, actually painting (Joe), setting the menu for the night, selecting a color theme for the table linens and floral arrangements and finding time to actually read the book, I was relieved when 7:30 p.m. came around and guests began arriving. Admission: I know not everyone takes hosting book club as seriously as I do. My book choice was Room by Emma Donoghue mostly because it was selected as one of the New York Times Top 10 Books of 2010. When you choose a book from that list, you rest assured that at least part of the group is bound to like it.

A synopsis of Room via Good Reads:

In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way–he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary.

I am proud to state that Room was a hit with book club. It was sad, freaky, terrifying, enlightening, depressing, hopeful and funny all at the same time. Set upon a deeply disturbing premise – being kidnapped and held captive by a deranged person in a soundproofed cell for many years - Room was entirely original and like nothing else I’ve ever read. The book is narrated by 5-year-old Jack, and the tone takes some getting used to, but the investment pays off. Our meeting last night included some of the most lively – and lengthy – book discussion we’ve had in quite a while. Because Room addressed so many varying personal and psychological issues, we had even more to say about the book than usual. How do you think you would raise a child while imprisoned in an 11′ x 11′ room? Did you notice Ma’s real name was never revealed? In what section of the country do you think Room was located? What part of the story or which character did you wish was developed more? Did you sympathize at all with Ma’s father? The discussion was wonderful.

My book club menu wasn’t entirely original, but it was well received. After Karen, our resident wine opener, cracked open a few bottles, Meg started things off with her delicious warmed brie appetizer, and I served Martha’s Mac and Cheese, Contessa’s Parmesan Asparagus and a brand new salad with homemade dressing that stole the show (recipe to follow on HCG). If you ever doubted the authenticity of HCG (and why would you? This site is nothing if not authentic), my book club menu is proof that I live Here Comes Gina every.single.day. Laura’s chocolate chip cookies, MR’s PB&J bars and Asher’s chocolate covered pretzels via JTS made for a delicious dessert selection.

We did something crazy last night and set a tentative book club hosting schedule for the remainder of 2011. Yes, many of our book club members are Type A personalities (MR and I definitely are; we took online quizzes last week). We’re sure the husbands of book club members will be the giddy when they learn the dates by when all home improvement projects must be completed. The most anticipated 2011 meeting will take place in December when Katie (a.k.a. KB) will unveil the 200-year-old farmhouse she and her husband P. Hitch have been diligently renovating. All of book club is dying to see the transformation – this is an actual, intense renovation, not a pansy ass one like HCG would do. Even better, KB’s house will be decorated for Christmas for our December meeting!

After 18 very successful months, our book club is still without a name, so I turned to my dad for some suggestions. He gave it his best shot, but Dad’s best suggestion for our book club name is more fitting for the intermediate reading group of a second grade class: Bookworms. Really, Dad?