It’s a soggy Monday morning here–heavy sky and strangely warm temperatures are hanging all around our area. I had my first book club meeting last night, we read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Drew headed out to watch football with the fellas and a group of ladies came over for a little holiday party and book discussion. This is a first stab at a book club for all of us, and I was a little concerned that it might feel forced to have a topic (the book) to sit down and just begin discussing, but we all enjoyed the book enough that the conversation came tumbling out and we had plenty of digressions as well. In the end the consensus is that the book comes with an overall very high recommendation if anyone is looking for any last minute gift ideas for men or women, and the back story is a really interesting too. Without going into too much detail, I will say that the book is largely set in the early 1900s Depression era and focuses on a fictional circus aspiring to the likes of Ringling Brothers. The author did a great deal of research and used many of the anecdotal stories that she came across in her research to build her tale. Something that I particularly enjoyed about the book was that each chapter opens with a real picture from circuses around the time that the story takes place, and gives a peek into what’s to come within the chapter. Because I kind of geek out of stuff like that, I wound up doing some reading of my own about the history of the circus and came across the Ringling archives which is where the following pictures come from. I’m not sure what we’re reading next, Susan in our group is choosing and letting us know this week, but overall, I think the book club is going to be a success!
Flux Capacitating 