Saturday, November 10, 2007

Book Club Blogs Return!!! - Lottery is on the table



I’m so excited about this one!!! First, I’m resurrecting the book club blogs (more on that later for those of you who don’t know about them), second I get to host a discussion about Lottery by Patricia Wood

I first heard of the book a few months ago at Anti-Wife’s Blog. After reading the wonderful review there, I jotted down the title and author and thought I would pick it up the next time I stopped at Barnes and Noble or ordered from Amazon... A few weeks later I ran across a review and interview of the author at Ello’s Random Acts of Unkindness Blog, which I enjoyed so much that I bumped the book up to a must have and ordered in the same week.

For those of you who don’t know, Patricia Wood is an author living in Hawaii who goes by the blog name, Orion. As soon as I finished reading Lottery, I sent off an email to ask her permission to use the book in a book club blog. Obviously, and graciously, she said yes. Ms. Wood also offered to participate in the discussion!!!!

Okay, I’m doing a little happy dance. I really loved this book. It’s the story of Perry L. Crandall whose IQ is 76 and he is not retarded, he is slow. Perry’s voice is so simple, and yet profound in ways that Perry doesn’t even realize. He’s lived his entire life with his grandparents until his Gramps dies, then it’s just Perry and Gram and they make a great team, until Gram’s death when Perry has to take care of himself – with the help of some wonderful friends. Perry has a job and a best friend, Keith, and a crush on Cherry who works at the Handy Mart. Lottery asks the question, ‘What would happen if someone like Perry won a large amount in the lottery?’ The immediate answer is, great for him! But soon you’ll realize that a large amount of money comes with great responsibility and a person like Perry needs to be careful of those trying to take advantage... Now what if the people he needs the most protection from are his own family?

The first discussion will get underway on Thursday, December 13th - this will give everyone time to purchase and read Lottery, while avoiding the Christmas rushing that comes the week or so before the 25th. You can follow the link in the first paragraph of this post to find the book at Amazon, or you can call your local Barnes and Noble or favorite bookstore and make sure it’s in stock...

The Book Club Blog discussions started at the blogging community I was a member of before opening this blog – the site is gone now, otherwise I would link all the wonderful discussions there. To make a long story short, book club blogs are about the same as real world book clubs, without the wine and cheese, or coffee and cheesecake... though you’re perfectly welcome to bring your wine and cheese to the keyboard and commence to cyber toasting.

I did host one Book Club discussion on this blog, back in May, but it didn’t really take off and no other blogger took up the next discussion. If you’d like to read the discussions on the Mists of Avalon you can find them here: The First Discussion, The Second Discussion, and The Final Discussion

I’d love to see a lot of participation on this one, especially as it’s such a good book. If you’re interested in hosting a book club blog, let me know – they’re a lot of fun and I’d love to participate in others around the blog-o-sphere.

Okay, I seem to have fixed the link problem - for some reason you don't need to include the "quotation marks" before or after the html address on this field. I'm assuming that removing them will also work in the comments section, but I'll try it out to make sure

20 comments:

ORION said...

Hey you said there WOULD be wine and cheese and other good food...
I'm looking forward to participating!
I've had great fun discussing LOTTERY with readers groups all over the country by speaker phone, ichat and skype...
much aloha and thanks for hosting this!

Merry Monteleone said...

Hi Patricia!

Thanks for participating!!! I'm looking so forward to this one and it's a real treat to have the author involved while discussing a novel.

Family Fun and Faith said...

I hope you have as much fun with this as we used to have at the old place, Merry. I especially loved the discussion in which our friend Malcolm Campbell participated in the discussion of his book The Sun Singer. I have recently re-posted the original segments of the discussion.

(http://www.familyfunfaith.com/2007/11/revisiting-sun-singer.html)

count me in on the discussion of Lottery!

Malcolm R. Campbell said...

Nice to see the book club discussions starting up again.

Yellowtail Shiraz isn't too expensive, so perhaps you could send out for several cases to keep us from getting thirsty.

Malcolm

Merry Monteleone said...

Hi Malcolm and FF&F,

As these are cyber goodies I'm supplying, only the best... how about Boonesfarm Strawberry Hill and Cheeze Whiz?

Nice to see you're both joining in, I think you'll really love the book.

Family Fun and Faith said...

Merry, I too have no idea how to add a link here in the comments, but here is the url of a post I made to announce the book club on Live Journal.

http://recommendedread.livejournal.com/39124.html

silken said...

sounds like a good one. I will try to participate, but I am short on time these days....

Anonymous said...

I will plan to participate too, Merry. This looks like a great discussion!

I will be happy to host a book discussion at my place sometime next year too. That would be fun.

Merry Monteleone said...

Hi FF&F,

I wonder if I checked or unchecked a box somewhere and that's what's causing the problems with linking, because I never had a problem with it before... there was one time the same thing happened to a link on a post, a few weeks ago - otherwise I'd always been able to do it in both the comments and posts... I'll try to get into blogger and find out what happened to fix it this week.

Thanks, though, for the promotions!

Hi Silken,

I know how busy the holiday season can get - especially for a homeschool mom. If you can make it for the discussion that would be great, I think you'll enjoy the book either way if you can fit it in.

Hi Shelly,

Great to have you! And that would be excellent if you could host the next one - I'll make sure to put a link (once I fix the feature) to your blog for the next discussion in the book club blogs for this one. Make sure you let me know when you put up the announcement blog, too, so I can promote it here.

Malcolm R. Campbell said...

Hmm, I wonder what's interfering with the links. I mentioned the discussion in a post of my Writer's Notebook and sent a trackback, but I don't see it showing up here either.

Here's the link to the post: http://jockstewart.typepad.com/writers_notebook/2007/11/book-discussion.html

Malcolm

Merry Monteleone said...

Hi Malcolm,

Let's see if I can link it:

Jock Stewart

Family Fun and Faith said...

how did you get the link to work?

Merry Monteleone said...

Hi FF&F

For some reason, in this field and in the post, you have to eliminate the "quotation marks" before and after the html address.

I don't know why, I'm on the new blogger background and settings, so maybe that has something to do with it... but if you do your link the same way you always do, eliminating the "", it'll work.

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

Cool! I'm glad you liked it too! I loved this book.

How's the writing going?

Mary Witzl said...

I have been wanting to read this book ever since I first read about it on Kanani's site.

This comment is so late because our telephone/internet was cut off for four awful days and they've finally repaired the lines. It has been very strange being disconnected...

And how is the writing going?

Merry Monteleone said...

Hi Ello,

I must've missed this comment... I loooved the book, it should be a great discussion, I hope you'll stop in for it. The writing's going pretty well right now - I think I've since answered this in my latest post, but yesterday and today I've been working solely on the wip... I'll fit in some time for brainstorming essay ideas later next week.

Hi Mary,

Sorry about your connection problems, I know how frustrating that can be, especially when you're a blog addict :-)

I hope you can pick up a copy and make the discussion - you'll really enjoy it.

silken said...

I got the book from the library this weekend and I am finished with it already!! :)

here is a post I did about the book and the upcoming discussion

Anonymous said...

Hi Merrie. I found your blog through our lovely Jersey Girl. I may be too late but I would be interested in participating in the book club blog. Would you email details...I'm going to go out today at lunchtime and see if I can find this book.

Email makabeje@yahoo.ca

Thanks!

Family Fun and Faith said...

I just finished the book and am looking forward to the discussion next week!

Merry Monteleone said...

Hi Silken,

I must have missed this comment, though I saw the post - thanks for all of the promotions... should be a great one!

Hi Kathy,

I replied to this one via email, but if you stop back over, thanks for the promotions on your site and I'm looking forward to your participation on the 13th.

Hi FF&F,

Wasn't it fantastic? Oh, never mind, let me know how you like it this coming Thursday... I'm planning on putting the post up first thing in the morning so people have the whole day to stop whenever they're available... I haven't decided yet what the second post will entail, I think I'll play it by ear and see what discussions arise from the first...