Reality Bites

I joined a book club through this professional women's organization here in KC. I always feel stupid when I say "professional women's organization"...I feel like I'm in Romy and Michelle's High School reunion when they go into that diner ask for the "businesswoman's lunch special". But if I said Central Exchange, no would understand what that is.

Anyway on the book club. I love to read. But my favorite reading is trashy romance novels. This is not one of those book clubs. I'm all for reading the classics...but I also like to be entertained and not every single book you read has to have some deep message - sometimes it's raining because the author looked out her window and it was raining. So this past month we were to read 3 short stories by Truman Capote - he wrote 3 short stories about growing up in the South and they were set around the Christmas holidays. Appropriate for the month so we could discuss today.

I love these ladies. The discussion is always lively and 1/2 is about the book and the other 1/2 is about current events or just stories about their lives. 2 of the ladies run the book club and they are hard core. They take notes with every single book they read - almost as if they were book critics.

But I am disappointed with next months read: The Exodus by Leon Uris. Now I read the Exodus a long time ago - probably read it when I was too young to really understand it. But I am so not in the mood to read about political struggles in the middle east when I can just see the latest iteration on TV every night. Sigh...then one of the ladies had the "bright" idea of reading Jimmy Carter's book called Palenstine, Peace not Apartheid at the same time to compare. I'm like, compare what? Exodus is FICTION. It may be based upon actual events, but the people and the story itself are fiction! THEN! Someone else piled on and said we should also read Walking the Bible, Abraham's story.

I didn't realize that I joined a religious book club! I read and watch movies to escape reality. I watch Headline News with Robin and the Gang every morning because I only want 30 seconds of reality at a time. I don't want to dwell on the fact that nothing has really changed in the last 30 years in terms of middle eastern conflict. I hope we have lighter books on the list for 2007 otherwise I don't see staying with the book club.