Repost from Samantha's Blog

The Grab Bag Book Club met for the first time last week, and we discussed a book by a local author (Patty Jane's House of Curl by Lorna Landvik). We had a great time discussing the book, and picking out some of our upcoming books. I think we have determined that we all have different tastes in books, but we do all agree that we are looking for more fun reads, not ones that are super in-depth or serious. To that aim, we came up with a bunch of books that look good!

I found a great site called Reading Group Guides that has tons of great resources for a book club leader - ideas for books, themes, questions to guide discussions, meeting location ideas and more. Check it out. :) We found some of our "to read" books from that site.

The book we are reading for our next meeting is not on that site, but it does promise to be hilarious: My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands by Chelsea Handler. Erin Jane thought her books would be very funny.

Here is a list of some of the other books that the attendees last week agreed on:

1. Mrs. Perfect by Jane Porter
2. Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA by Kris Radish
3. No Good Girls by Jean Marie Pierson
4. Names My Sisters Call Me by Megan Crane
5. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (my mom and I have read this and it is phenomenal...she has a new book out now called The Sugar Queen that we could read, but it is only in hardcover, so that could make it a bit tougher. However, I think it would be worth it. FYI, it's also available on the Kindle.)
6. Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch
7. My Best Friend's Girl by Dorothy Koomson

We also had a couple of maybes, looking for approval or not from the folks who couldn't make our first meeting on these ones:

1. Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble
2. The Next Thing on My List by Jill Smolinski

Our next book club meeting is going to be at the end of June (I'm thinking either Thursday the 26th or Monday the 30th, or even Tuesday, July 1st), where we'll be discussing the Chelsea Handler book. If you have any suggestions for a meeting location, or for another good book to read (either from the lists above or anywhere else!), please send them to me. It's always best to have a lot of options on our "to-read" list, plus you may find that one of these interests you and you want to read it now!

Please let me know which date works best for you, or if a date doesn't work for you.

• Thursday, June 26th
• Monday, June 30th
• Tuesday, July 1st

Happy reading (try not to shoot Diet Coke out of your nose when you realize how hilarious Chelsea Handler is...)

-SKH