Book Club, Party Time, Excellent

The Page Turner's Society turned 1 today! Hooray! We voted on our favorite spot that we'd had dinner at the past year and the food was delish!

It's no secret that I love bookclub, even if the book ends up sucking I have one night a month to hang out with some great ladies and talk and drink and stuff our faces with food. Everyone brings so much to the table... I know you've heard that all before but it's so true. They are so much fun to sit and chat with, as usual we will veer off course but we all like to read and talk, perfect combo.

This month we read Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. It's tells the story of Charlie, a man in his 30's who is mentally challenged and Algernon a lab mouse who scientist used in an experiment to test a procedure that would make him smarter. Needing a human trial they found Charlie and gave him the same operation to increase his IQ. The book is from Charlie's perspective through his progress reports he rights to chart improvements. This book was also a Hallmark movie with Matthew Modine and there is a nice cliff notes version for you as well.

The book starts out with grammatical errors and misspelled words since Charlie isn't too smart. As the book progresses his dated progress reports become more correct as we see that the operation has worked and Charlie's IQ is increasing. As the story continues the author challenges to see whether or not intelligence makes a person better. We follow Charlie through his struggles as his mind outgrows his emotional and social "smartness" It's a sad story as you see him struggle through these changes. But it's one of those books that you have to read to see if you'll like it.

I actually had "read" this book back in High School so I knew the general premise of the book. I gave it a 3 and our discussion a 4 this time around. We have already read 12 books, it's crazy to think about. December is my month and we will be reading A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood. You may remember this being my secret submission for the one year anniversary meeting. I really liked the book, it's a different style/direction for the club and it's a good short book for a busy December (can you believe it's almost December already?! crazy!) So read along with us and tell me what you think of the book if you ready it. It's also a very pretty movie directed by Tom Ford starring Colin Firth (love him). Happy Book Club Night everyone!