Friday, March 21, 2008

22 November: The Last Book Club

This morning I cleaned up the house and arranged the dining room chairs in the living room as my last duty as book club hostess. Beth made cinnamon rolls for me yesterday so I didn’t have to bake anything, which was a good thing because I ran out of time. We had the usual crowd in attendance – Beth, Katrina, Jane, Brenda, Heather, Debbie, and Ulla, plus Anne came for the first time and brought along her daughter and a male friend visiting from England. (What??? A man in our book club? We decided to allow him entry this time, because he was a big fan of our book, Ender’s Game.)

It had been Brenda’s idea to read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, and it was certainly a change from the usual book club selections. The book tells the story of a brilliant 6-year-old boy nicknamed Ender who is chosen to attend an elite battle school in space in hopes that he will eventually help save Earth from an alien invasion. It’s not your typical sci-fi – much more psychological thriller than action-adventure – and I enjoyed it, but it didn’t float everyone’s boat and had a rather bizarre ending. Ulla wasn’t a big fan, and I felt sorry for her having to slog through it!

The women brought Heather and I a couple of gifts since this was our final gathering (I don’t think I’ve mentioned that Heather is moving at the end of the month to Koblenz with her husband, who got a job with a Mercedes supplier). Debbie presented Heather with three bottles of fancy sparkling cider, and, since Debbie didn’t know until today that I was pregnant, I got three bottles of Kessler champagne! That was fine with me, since we plan to bring some German alcoholic beverages home with us. Heather and I also each received a copy of the Schwäbisch cookbook, signed by all of the members of the book club. I laughed when I saw it because it was one of the first things I bought for myself when I moved to Stuttgart, but I will cherish this “signed edition” dearly!

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