LitClub:  New Port Richey Book Club
New Port Richey, Florida

ALL IT TOOK was an email, a simple email—"I'm reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and on May 24, I'll be sitting at home with a glass of wine. If you'd like to talk about the book, please join me." The 24th rolled around, and before Dyan Hudson knew it, a group of women was sitting in her living room—a book club was born!

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You're a pretty web-saavy group—a start-up through email, and now your own Facebook page, right?
Right. We use Facebook to share photos of the meetings and thoughts about the books. It's also a convenient way to keep in touch with all our members.

So how many members do you have?
We're celebrating our one year anniversary, and we're now up to 24 members—family and friends.

You started with Mockingbird... what else have you read?
Here's our list over the past year:

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Help
Something Borrowed
Midnight...Garden of Good & Evil
Summer Rental
House Rules
Unbroken
La Cucina
Sister
Have a Little Faith
Nectar (by Lily Prior)
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Any favorites...or disappointments?
The Help was a clear favorite. We also loved La Cucina and had high expectations for Nectar (also by Lily Prior) but were disappointed: Nectar was a little too folklorish for us.

Which books led to great discussions?
Unbroken was one of the best. The book offers a wide range of topics to talk about—post traumatic stress, technology, familial love, and romantic love. And those topics encouraged us to branch out into other discussions.

How do you select your books?
We rotate. Each member gets a month to choose the book she wants. We tried a simple vote, but it took far too long to discuss all the options. So now we take turns.

By the looks of it, you have lots of fun...and wine!
We do! We even held a wine tasting at one of our meetings. Sadly, it didn't leave much time (or interest?) in talking about the book.

So, now, aside from social time at the beginning, we do extracurricular activities outside our regular meetings. So far we've attended a movie together (The Help), had a pajama party, and held a Christmas dinner party at a local restaurant.

Any final words?
Not really, except that all of us enjoy a good read and a good reason to get together once a month with a great bunch of women!! [Well said! —the Editor.]

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