October 2012 Book Club (8th Anniversary) "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn

Hi Everyone,

This email will be a short one. I just wanted to notify all of you right away of important dates decided upon at our October meeting and information you may want to have especially when planning your schedule for the upcoming holiday season. Later, I’ll be sending another email just to share my thoughts on October’s book Gone Girl (as soon as I finish reading it!)

Besides myself, those in attendance at October’s “Frankenmonster”  meeting at Mama Rosa’s Restaurant were Barb D., Cheryl, Christine, Lori, and Mary Beth. Thanks to all who braved the storm to join our discussion; I hope all of you were spared any storm damage. Oddly, Tim and I had a  huge pine tree fall in our back yard as a result of the high winds. We didn’t discover it until tonight when a neighbor knocked on our door and told us. Since we leave so early in the morning before daylight, and  we don’t return home until dark, we were unaware of our own micro disaster area.

For November’s book title, we have chosen The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. This novel, a first by the author, reads like Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (one of our book club’s favorite titles), full of English humor and wit but filled with sensitivity and insight. We will meet to discuss this book on Saturday, November 17 as part of our yearly tradition of attending Butler Symphony Orchestra’s Christmas Home Tour. Visit their website http://butlersymphony.org/tag/house-tour/  to read descriptions of the homes on the tour and to learn where to purchase your ticket.

Let’s meet at my house; we can park cars then ride together to our tour destinations. We’ll meet at 9 A.M. then travel first to Main Street in Saxonburg where we can have breakfast at a quaint Café and tour our first home, The Mainstay Bed and Breakfast Inn right in Saxonburg. From there, we’ll head to the following addresses to continue our exciting day:

Jim and Joy Mulkern, 1258 Evans City Road, Evans City, PA 16033 

Ken and Sue Leader, 251 Ridge Road, Zelienople, PA 16063

Applebutter Inn, 666 Centreville Pike, Slippery Rock, PA 16057

The Old Stone House, (Slippery Rock University), 2865 William Flynn Hwy., Slippery Rock, PA 16057

 David Hill and Cynthia McKnight, 152 Haverford Drive, Butler, PA 

Another date to jot on your calendar is Saturday, December 8. This will be our annual Christmas dinner where we include our spouses/dates. We had planned to make reservations for dinner at the Italian restaurant Two Tomatoes in New Castle, but apparently they do not seat large parties,  and they are already booked for December 8. We now have to choose a new location for our dinner, so if you have any ideas, let me or Cheryl know. We want to confirm our reservations as early as possible, so we also need to know if you plan to attend. Remember, too, as always, December is our bookless month relieving us of any added pressure during the holiday season. 

The last item I want to address is the charitable donation our book club plans to make this year. After November’s donations, we will have collected around $150. At the meeting, we discussed keeping the donation local, so the idea of donating the sum to Chicora Medical Center’s new library was decided. If anyone has another beneficiary in mind who might have a more immediate need for our donation, it’s not too late for us to reconsider our gift’s recipient at the November meeting.

I’ll keep everyone up to date on any changes as they come. Meanwhile, keep the above dates open and join us for our club’s annual holiday rituals.

Yours in reading,
Tammy