Monday, January 23, 2012

IT'S A NEW YEAR!!! YAY!!!

First, let me say I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year holiday and that the year so far has been kind.  How many of you have started your year off with the awful resolutions we always subject ourselves to at the beginning of the new year:
  1. Healthy diet
  2. Exercise more
  3. Stop smoking
  4. Get out of debt
  5. Get organized
  6. Save money
  7. Volunteer to help others
  8. etc., etc., etc.
    Rio is my inspiration - always ready to walk
I actually had started my new year exercise and diet routine that many of us endure for as long as we can and was doing wonderfully.....walking 3 miles every morning with my dog, then swimming every afternoon (swimming was only 5 days a week).  Anyway, that lasted for 2 weeks until my first of the year head cold kicked in.  I'll get back on track as soon as the congestion eases.

The one good that comes out of my cold is that it has slowed me down so that I can concentrate on the blog. 

There are some wonderful new books out this year and I will try to keep you apprised of many of them.  Unfortunately, we will not try to select best sellers for use in the the book club.  Our experiences with the book The Help, and how hard it was to get copies of the book (without buying a copy) has taught me that no matter how tempting, we have to hold off on new books.  That will not keep me from listing a lot of interesting choices on our Suggested Reading page.

We started off with a bang last year, with The Help, but peetered out during the holidays.  I'm not sure if it was the book choice - Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burrows - or just because everyone was busy, but I am hoping for bigger and better things this year.  I have been keeping abreast of others that are trying to start online bookclubs.  Some are having problems getting people to join, or stay and others are having issues with choice of reading.  Since I already had a loyal following from my established bookclub, I had a few people from that club that were happy to support an online club and surprisingly there were more of my friends and family in other states who were not a part of the original bookclub that leaped at the chance to help get the online version up and running.

That being said, please don't shy away from books that are selected that you wouldn't normally read.  That is really the point of a bookclub, to kind of get you out of your comfort zone in reading.  We'll read fiction, non-fiction, biographies, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, mysteries, science fiction.  Our reading selections will be as diverse as our bookclub members.  I wish you could all meet each other face to face.  Many of you I know personally.  We have some new members out of the Detroit, MI area that I have never met, but I am learning of them through their facebook postings.  Stop in on our Facebook page and welcome them.  It is an amazing adventure that I am having.  Our club members are African-American, white, hispanic, male, female, young and not so young.  It's makeup makes for wonderful discussions, because we come at books from all angles.  lol.   I don't care what people say about social networking - I think it is a wonderful tool.  That is one of the reasons I am asking again that you support the book selections each month.  I am quite sure that everyone is not going to love every selection - that would be impossible.  Each one of us has our likes and dislikes, but that is what makes for a good discussion.  Give each book a chance, I guarantee you there will be someone in the group that absolutely loves something about at least one book that we read during the year.  I have only selected one book that I thought people were going to beat me for:  The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid.  People were stopping me in the library telling me how much they hated the book, and I have to admit...though it was a short read, it was a difficult read.  I couldn't figure out why it was so hard to get through until one of the ladies that read it told me, it was written in the first person.  There wasn't any dialog at all.  Funny the things that are just expected in novels...  Well I went into the conference room the night of bookclub, very apprehensive of the reaction I expected from the members.  Lo and behold, there were two members - a young woman, and a middle aged professor who loved the book!  And what is even stranger, they loved it for the same reason...they felt the author put the main character in the position of speaking directly to the reader.  They felt she was speaking to them.  That was the same reason most of us didn't like the book.  I read it again, from their point of view and the book flowed much easier.  Still not one of my favorite books, but you might want to pick one up and see how you like it.

So on with the show!  New year, new selections, new members, new meetings.  I am soooo excited right now, you don't even know!


SO MANY BOOKS.....SO LITTLE TIME


Infinity Bookshelf

4 comments:

Sharon said...

it was the holidays, Mz. Y. i really wanted to read that book. in fact, i'm still renewing it! big crunch week getting ready for a meeting, then i'll get to the new book, and fit in the last one too! thanks for motivating me to read some Big Girl books~
S.

MsCros said...

Got you Ms Sharon!

Crosimoto said...

The site is really looking good! Awesome job!

MsCros said...

@Cros - Thanks, I'm getting help from some of the best. *wink* *wink*.

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