January book club: brooklyn again!

I hope no one minds if we do an adult read for next month (kidding, Josh...who could have known that a colorful picture book was actually intended for children? Crazy).

Anyway, since I'm a short story fan and I grew up in the DC area, I'm going with All Aunt Hagar's Children, the most recent story collection by Washington author Edward P. Jones. You'll know him from his Motherfucking Pulitzer Prize.

I can only find an Amazon link to the LARGE PRINT paperback version, but trust me, it is around in regular paper back. It looks like this:



Not sure you want to tackle almost 400 pages of the working class black experience in 20th century DC? No prob...read one or two stories and you're good to go, just like in college.

I'm scheduling the meeting for Sunday, January 27th...for those of you who might be worried, that's the week after MLK Day (and the Conference Championships) and the week before the Super Bowl. For once, you won't have to choose between a three day weekend, football, and the book club.

Ahem! For the second time, the club will be in South Slope Brooklyn, with the address and exact meeting time to follow via email. I would also like to add that I'm really excited about the menu.

Your Favorite Books of 2007?

In light of the totally boring, completely predictable, and remarkably similar "official" lists of the best books of 2007, I thought it might be interesting for people from Books & Booze--The Best Damn Book Club in Brooklyn--to chime in.

If you have a minute, put your fav books that you read last year (doesn't matter when it was published) in the comments. I'd be really interested to hear what they are.

Well, at Least Everyone Liked the Monkey King

I have a confession to make: I kind of forgot about taking photos at this last book club.

BUT, I think that's okay, because this bulleted list of fantastic things about the book club will probably make up for it:

• General Tso's Chicken
• Mimosas
  
• Orange Chicken
• Wild Turkey
  
• Three kinds of dumplings
• White Wine (in a box)
  
• Brownies made from scratch
  
• Treats from Flower Fruit Island
• Homemade Cookies
• (Did I mention the Wild Turkey?)
  

Despite the fact that most of us found the book to be only so-so, I was pretty impressed by the level of discourse and now I am a lot less mad about last month and how everyone totally dissed my favorite book of the year at the last book club.

Book Clubbers: what is this post missing? Did I forget anything?

Because Booze is the Real High Value Item

Thanks, Ami, for making me an official contributor to the blog. I hope I don't go too mad with the ability to post. This first comment is rather short.

On Sunday afternoon I bought the book for December's meeeting. I've not started reading it. Flipping through it, there seems to be a lot of white space so I expect to complete my reading by Saturday night. I'm not sure if this sort of thing is allowed since most of you are in the publishing industry and book sales are what you're after but I'm willing to lend my copy to others anytime after Monday morning. I figured I'd make the book available to save someone else a few dollars or also aid any who are having trouble finding the book (it turns out those graphic novel sections at bookstores are in serious disarray). Leave a comment below and we can work out the transfer details.