Friday, September 28, 2012

2012 Update

To bring you up to date, 2012 has been a busy year for our little bookclub.

We started 2012 with a January bookclub to overcome those post-Christmas blues in Balbriggan hosted by Anne Marie. We had a very tasty lunch and the nicest chocolate pie. The book we discussed that meeting was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. We all enjoyed the book and loved the circus setting but the ending was a bit of a let down.

Our next meeting was on April 28th hosted by Kathryn in her new house in Goatstown. A lovely sunny day, Kathryn treated us to burritos. Our book for that meeting was One Moment, One Morning by Sarah Rayner. We all agreed the book was a little depressing.

The next time we met was on May 26th hosted by Vally in Ashtown. We had a new member join us, Adrienne, always nice to have someone new in the group as it livens things up a little. We also had a mini bookclubber join us, Ella Rose and we did our first bookclub photo shoot. Another lovely sunny day but unfortunately trying to organize eight women and get them all looking at the camera proved challenging!

Our next meeting was in July 4th in the Exchange Restaurant in the Westin Hotel. They do bring your own wine on a Wednesday of which we took advantage. There was at least a bottle of wine per person! Cue much laughter and the next day many a sore head but what fun we had! The book up for discussion for that meeting was Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James. I pitied our poor waiter and our fellow diners especially those on dates! We all agreed that we started off with Fifty loving it and ended up feeling fed up and annoyed. Neither of the characters are particularly likeable and after a while, the writing started to grate and the sex scenes got boring! Only a few of us ended up reading book two and even fewer finished the trilogy.

We decided to have bookclub’s first away night and the location was Graiguenamanagh, co. Kilkenny. They host a Festival of Books in September but we choose the summer season and August 11th was the chosen date. We had so much fun – we rented bikes and cycled to St. Mullin’s; stayed in the Waterside and spent the next day in Inistioge. Read all about it by on Girl From The Hills blog.

Our new member, Adrienne, hosted the next meeting and decided to have a movie night inspired by our bookclub away and so the ‘circle of friends’ evening was held on the 21st September in Raheny. We never did get round to watching the movie – too much to talk about! Adrienne cooked chicken curry and beautiful fairy buns. Her cooking and baking skills mean she is now a lifelong member! The book was Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, author of a previous book we all enjoyed - Shadow of the Wind. All those who read the book agreed it was a great read. Our book for the next meeting due to be held in November is Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan.

1 comment:

Valerie said...

Thanks for all the updates Ms P!