back to LitClub
view all clubs
• First, the Food
• Happy Bookers
• Luna
• Oldfield
• REAL
• Storie Della
Sorelle
Okatie, SC
When and how did you form?We organized in 2003. All of us had just moved into this newly built community, and what better way to make friends than through a book club! We started with only 4 members, and now we're up to 18.
What have you read recently?
We read 11 books a year (skipping December). Here are several recent ones:
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Water for Elephants
When Madeline Was Young
Lilla’s Feast
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
The Glass Castle
My Old True Love
Any favorites?
Our clear favorite is The Kite Runner, which we read a couple of years ago. It’s wonderfully written and nearly spoiled us when it came to reading other books. But we also loved Water For Elephants and My Old True Love.
What kind of books appeal to your members?
We enjoy books with a compelling story and powerful emotional content that triggers an emotional response in us. The Kite Runner falls under this category—it was a gut-wrenching story.
Which books inspired good discussions?
The Glass Castle: A Memoir led to one of our best discussions—about parenting, its challenges and responsibilities. Somehow, Walls allows us to tolerate her parents’ behavior, and certainly the children have done well in life. But we wondered whether the parents were, in fact, abusive.
Any books you found disappointing?
We found The Divine Husband (Francisco Goldman) difficult and not terribly engaging. We were also disappointed in The Mermaid Chair (Sue Monk Kidd): we didn’t think it was particularly well written, nor was there much to talk about.
How do you operate?
1) We meet at our clubhouse at 5:30 for wine and dinner. At 7:00 we discuss the book.
2) We choose 3 books at a time through recommendations and voting. That way we can read at
our own pace, and we have plenty of advance notice if, say, we’re traveling.
3) One our members has become our de facto discussion leader. But we may change so that the
person who recommended the book we’re reading leads that discussion.
