Book club:

Last night was another fun meeting of the Rulebreakers^TM Book Club. The book we were discussing (yes, husbands, we actually discuss the book) was The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern.

Overall, book club liked it. The visuals were dreamy--if you couldn't guess from the title, the book is about a magical circus that takes place--wait for it--at night. OK, it's really about a lot more than that (magical challenges, illusionists in love...), but the overall theme was this black and white night circus, and we all agreed that it was a circus that we'd all like to visit. Personally, I felt the plot itself was a little slow-moving, but the descriptions of everything about Les Cirque des Reves--down to the smell--were so so crazy detailed, that it more than made up for it.

Naturally the theme of our evening was the circus--with a dash of black and white--with popcorn, pretzels, black and white cookies, and magic bars (YUM) to eat. Our host Kathy did a great job decorating with the theme of the book, too--black, white and red tablecloths, candles, tickets...

Unfortunately, Erin Morgenstern wasn't available via Twitter (she was nice enough to let us know beforehand that she would be traveling; and she did answer a question before her plane took off [I'd like to think that the flight attendants were all, Miss, you HAVE GOT to turn off your phone, otherwise the plane can't take off! And she was all, HOLD ON! I have an important book club question I have to answer!]).

Since we're trying to be Twitter BFFs with the authors of our books, we have started taking group photos (to tweet back to them). Here we are, in our black and white (and red) glory:

All in all, another super fun book club. Next up is the Steve Jobs autobiography--which happens to coincide with our annual holiday meet, where we get grab bag gifts. I'm hoping somebody gets an iPad (you know, to go with the theme)... but with a $15 spending cap, that might be hard.

Book club:

Last night my book club met, and since I chose the book, I got to host. The book was the Violets of March, by Sarah Jio. Every time we meet we try and do a matching theme to our book (we also have a bottle of whipped cream vodka that comes to every meeting, but more on that later); but this one was challenging. The book itself took place in Seattle, and went back and forth between present day and the 1940s. There wasn't too much food in the book, and save for fish and coffee, I was stumped as far as Seattle foods went. So I got a little creative and decided to have a violet food theme. Blue corn chips, purple grapes, figs (or Fig Newtons in our case)... you get the idea. So I tweeted:



And Oh. Em. Gee. You guys, the author of the book tweeted back!



As my book club gals arrived, I told them the awesome news about my twitter conversation, and you know what? Sarah Jio not only live tweeted with us throughout the meeting, she BLOGGED about our little violet book club meeting(and called us trendsetters! Squeeeee!)! It completely reaffirmed my love of the Twitter.

We promised Sarah that we would tweet some pics to her; here we are toasting her with our blueberry creamcicles (sparkling blueberry juice and whipped cream vodka):



And here is our blue foods spread:


Purple grapes, Washington apples, brie, blueberries and chocolate covered blueberries, Fig Newtons, blue corn chips, hummus (that wasn't blue, but was delish!), and goldfish! Also, red velvet cupcakes for the red velvet diary in the book. Whoever thought of that is the honorary book club rocket scientist.


Cannolis with purple sprinkles? Yes please!

Book club is always a blast--we're such a diverse, fun group of girls--and so far we've picked a bunch of diverse, fun books, so I always look forward to a meeting. The fact that Sarah Jio was conversing with us all meeting long was the icing on the cake. I think the only way the meeting could have been topped is if she was there in real life (her living in Seattle, and having recently had a baby were just a few minor obstacles). But rest assured, next time she does a book tour on the east coast, I am SO there!