Winner of the National Book Award Recap

Winner of the National Book Award Meeting
January 26, 2006
Location: Zoe's Diner in Cambridge
In Attendance: Anne, Beth, Cynthia, Donna, Erin, Paula, Rachel and Wendy

Wow, it's so hard to post something after seeing those amazing pictures of Wendy in the fertility garden. (scroll down and you'll see them) First of all, that's a great picture of you, Wendy. It took me a second to notice the penises in the background. They complement you well!

My apologies for taking so long to post the minutes. Luckily, I took copious notes during the meeting with an OCLC pen I borrowed from Paula, so even though it's been, ahem, a few weeks, my recap should be pretty accurate. (yeah, right...)

We met at Zoe's Diner in Cambridge. The diner didn't have any connection with the book -- Beth just really likes diners. We met on a Sunday night at 5:00 so the place was dead. Cynthia made the stunning observation that everyone at the table was either wearing the color red or purple. (Donna was wearing pink but that's a a red hue) And then Cynthia pointed out that red and purple was the color scheme of the diner, so we matched.

Our waiter was...how shall I put this? Well, he was someone my mother would politely call "a personality." In other words, he was nuts. He was very animated and talkative, which wasn't so bad, but he kept trying to get us to change our orders. For example, he tried to talk Erin and Donna into splitting a greek salad instead of ordering two, he tried to get me to order a vanilla coke when I wanted cream soda, and he told Cynthia to order turkey sausage because the regular sausage tasted like his shoe. How does he know what his shoe tastes like? Gross. Wendy noticed that he stuck his finger in his ear when he was taking our orders and then we were all very worried about him handling our food. But we managed to order and he managed to bring us our food and then talk turned to the book.

No one liked it. (sorry Jincy) This was a bummer because book club is always more lively when we disagree. (See: Hitchhiker's Guide. Also, remember Sheltering Sky???)

Here's what some of the bookclubbers had to say:

Beth hated* it. She was disappointed because she picked the book after reading the first two pages, which she loved, especially the description of the mother being struck by lightning. But as she continued reading, she started to hate* it because the characters were a bunch of misanthropes.

Donna and Erin also liked the beginning. Donna said she related to the narrator because she was a librarian and had delivered mail and these are things Donna had done. Erin liked the description of the Northeast.

Wendy thought it was alright but she thought that was because she has so little time to read outside of school and she's pretty much happy with anything she can get her hands on these days. She thought Abigail was charasmatic at moments and she liked the set up -- she enjoyed the way the book poked fun at the ghost writer. Erin pointed out that we were never given any insight into the real story of Abigail's life.

Paula thought it was just okay. She thought the characters were one dimensional and this left her with an annoying feeling.

Rachel disliked it too. She thought it was clever at times but that the story didn't carry as a novel. The characters were too implausible but she enjoyed the part when they made fun of people who write in books. She said this as I was taking notes in my book. I was SAUCED. (right, Wendy?)

Okay, so now I am at the dessert part of the evening because my notes just say "banana bread" and "baklava." Wendy told us some good stories about her trip to St. Louis. I didn't have any Ashley and Dan stories this time. (still don't! I am starting to miss those two...)

Next up: Manda picked In Cold Blood.

See you all soon!
Anne

* according to my notes, Beth changed "hated" to "intensely disliked" later in the evening.