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2nd Monday of the month....
Mar. 7th, 2003 02:26 pmI have until Monday to read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. So far it's interesting, although I'm not very far into it. I definitely want to make it to my reading group on Monday; for the last two months, something happened - either everyone was sick or John picked that night to put the kids bunk beds together, it's rather blurred in my mind now. But I have great fun when I do go. We are a bunch of middle aged ladies (and one long-suffering 50ish male who puts up with us, but he actually likes DBZ!), who get together once a month at Barnes & Noble and yak. We usually start out talking about the book, what we liked about it, what we didn't like, but then the conversation shifts to movies, and kids, and whatever else comes up. I think a few guys have joined us expecting to have a long serious drawn out question and answer session about the book, and when we don't stick to it for an hour, they never come back, which is too bad, because we like new people.
Debbie, our fearless leader, sat down a month or two ago and made a list of all the books we've read. It turns out we have been doing this for six years! This sounds about right, because I started a year or two before Angus was born. When I first began coming, it was run by two younger women, and there must have been 20 males who came without fail every month. Then the girls transferred to the another store, or got other jobs, and the young men all disappeared. I guess they were only there for the cute girls, and the books weren’t really that interesting.
Since then I have brought along three newborns to meetings, and we have gabbed about any and all sorts of stuff. Sometimes we get noisy, and the students hanging out there try to shush us. "This is a bookstore," we politely tell them, "not a library, and this is a store-scheduled discussion group." Nevertheless, we get looks. But, who cares - these are the same kids who ask Debbie where the copy machine is. "Um, not a library? You're supposed to buy the book."
I feel the slightest smidgeon of guilt, that I'm supporting this massive corporate entity that has changed the face of publishing, and made most of the privately owned bookstores go out of business. My friend Mike often chided me for it. However, we often buy our books from used bookstores - which are thriving around here - or the library, if the book is old enough. We just have to be careful to pick a book that's not out of print - the store manager's tend to get testy with Debbie about that.
Debbie has been making noises about either retiring or finding some other line of work. She's been there for a few years and feels she needs to find something more challenging. If she does, we may move our group to a coffeehouse or something, and continue meeting. I almost think I'd like that better.
Since we sometimes have trouble deciding on a book, I decided to create my first poll (whee!)-
[Poll #110257]
Debbie, our fearless leader, sat down a month or two ago and made a list of all the books we've read. It turns out we have been doing this for six years! This sounds about right, because I started a year or two before Angus was born. When I first began coming, it was run by two younger women, and there must have been 20 males who came without fail every month. Then the girls transferred to the another store, or got other jobs, and the young men all disappeared. I guess they were only there for the cute girls, and the books weren’t really that interesting.
Since then I have brought along three newborns to meetings, and we have gabbed about any and all sorts of stuff. Sometimes we get noisy, and the students hanging out there try to shush us. "This is a bookstore," we politely tell them, "not a library, and this is a store-scheduled discussion group." Nevertheless, we get looks. But, who cares - these are the same kids who ask Debbie where the copy machine is. "Um, not a library? You're supposed to buy the book."
I feel the slightest smidgeon of guilt, that I'm supporting this massive corporate entity that has changed the face of publishing, and made most of the privately owned bookstores go out of business. My friend Mike often chided me for it. However, we often buy our books from used bookstores - which are thriving around here - or the library, if the book is old enough. We just have to be careful to pick a book that's not out of print - the store manager's tend to get testy with Debbie about that.
Debbie has been making noises about either retiring or finding some other line of work. She's been there for a few years and feels she needs to find something more challenging. If she does, we may move our group to a coffeehouse or something, and continue meeting. I almost think I'd like that better.
Since we sometimes have trouble deciding on a book, I decided to create my first poll (whee!)-
[Poll #110257]
