The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Greetings readers! This selection was inspired by Kris' husband Chip, who is a big fan of the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

All the group members were encouraged to wear PJs, bathrobe and bring their towel, because you should always know where your towel is when hitchhiking the galaxy.

As always we enjoyed amazing food. Peggy Ann brought out the French onion soup, one of my favorites I like to get from Applebee's. A lovely charcuterie board was presented by Kris. Others brought loaded Deviled eggs, bacon cheddar muffins, orange muffins, twice baked potatoes, chips and salsa and hummus, eclairs, fruit cocktail cake, cream cheese with pepper jelly and crackers. We love to have yummy food, it is a main draw for our discussions.

As we have over the years had book group members come and go, one will be leaving us in a few months but maybe not. She could always come back since she won't be too far away considering we are in a large state and are used to driving a bit, others may consider it too far. With the possible loss of a member, coincidentally we have gained a new member and are very happy to have her join our group. Welcome Nancy! Our group of regulars hovers around 8, give or take a few when the schedules infringe or permit attendance.

Our discussion seemed to be a mix of 'you really liked the book' or 'you weren't too crazy about it'. I had seen the movie before reading the book, but it had been a while since I had watched the movie. For me the names created by the writer were a little difficult to keep straight, but even a Charles Dickens novel gives me the same problem. The British humor also may have missed the target. We learned that a Ford Prefect was a car. Who would know that unless they were British?

It was interesting how the idea of the book title came long before the actual writing of the book and that there was a series before the book. And even more twisted, the movie is great but still quite different from the book in ways. So, if you are one who tends to get tired of the same thing over and over then you should be fine reading the book after you see the movie.

One of the many things I didn't know was that there were multiple books. After some guidance from Chip we figured that just reading book one of the five or so books would be sufficient and leave reading the rest up to us individually.

I was a little heart broken to learn that the author passed away relatively young, I am sure he had a few more interesting things to do with his career. Apparently, writing books wasn't his number one interest.

The characters in the book are interesting and creative all seem to be equally yoked in importance to the story and are highlighted with their own story.

Forgive me if I forget something of interest group members, you can always add a comment about something you found interesting.

At this book discussion we had our postponed gift exchange since several of our members were not going to be able to attend our book group Christmas party. It was a $15.00 max and themed 'favorite things'.

For our next book it was suggested by Lorraine, since she accidentally read Around the World in  Eighty Day by Jules Verne instead of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She then had to hustle to finish HGG in time for the book discussion. 

I don't have a problem with it since I have been lobbying for a Jules Verne for quite a while. This will be a quick read so we will have a discussion very soon. Feb 15th?

Thanks for reading the classics with us.

Sincerely,

Sharon

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

 Friday, September 29th we met at Kris's home for a discussion and movie of Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.  We were particularly pleased to be able to have our resident equestrian expert, Peggy Ann, present to share her knowledge and insight about horses and their care to help us understand the book better.

Here's a brief overview of the book from Wikipedia (which we all know is 100% trustworthy. Right . . .)

Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she was bedridden and seriously ill. The novel became an immediate best-seller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, but having lived long enough to see her only novel become a success.With fifty million copies sold, Black Beauty is one of the best-selling books of all time. 

Black Beauty was Anna Sewell's first and only book.  She wrote it more for adults than children, as she was hoping to change the minds of the people of her day and culture to be more caring about animals and more particularly horses. She was successful in this as Black Beauty ended up being a very influential book. Today it is generally read as children's literature.

There were 7 of us present: Stephanie T,, Stephanie R, Peggy Ann, Merri, Kris, Lorraine, and Lorraine's mom, Joan. As usual, we had plenty of food! - chicken salad sandwiches, Swiss Barley soup, fresh melon, eclairs, relish tray, chocolate mousse, potato wedges, spinach artichoke dip. (I probably missed something.)

We watched the 1994 movie which got the best reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. We recognized a lot of the actors from other British TV we have watched so we did spend some time looking up all the other shows people were in on IMDB - a very worthwhile endeavor to help keep some of us awake.  I am happy to report that neither Merri nor Kris did not fall asleep!

Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

 As a place marker I will say we did have a book discussion about The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side and watched the movie. I think we had the book discussion on May 19th. 

Lorraine brought slider and French Macrons, Sierra made them they were strawberry with cheesecake middles, Kris did a special tossed salad and a pan of Rice Krispy treats. Merri brought fresh pineapple and I brought some kind of dessert.

Kris de-catified her basement for the allergic Lorraine who attracts cat hair like a magnet.

As usual we enjoyed the food a long with a book discussion. Once again I have waited too long for my memory to recall any points of our discussion.

This was the second time I have read this book but it had been a long time between readings so it was almost like I had never read it before though I did know the basic story.

In recent news there was some discussion of the text of Agatha Christie's books to "rework to remove potentially offensive language"(The Guardian). So we thought we should read one while they were still original to the author. I don't know if this selection was on the reworking block.

The next selection is Emma by Jane Austin.