Laura came up with this game after reading Jane Eyre.  We had to share a story from our own lives that mirrored one of Jane Eyre's experiences.  So, Laura asked us, "What is your Jane Eyre experience?"  Stories consisted of pleasant surprises, shocking surprises, our most frightening experience, our best meal, our worst meal and a romantic proposal.   We had a blast sharing stories from the past. 

This was our second game for Wide Sargasso Sea, and this one was quite easy!  How many times have we described a person as "crazy" whether it be for unbelievable decisions they make or for awkward confrontations, etc.  So, we shared "Bertha" stories from our past.  We all got a good laugh out of most of these!

This book club meeting was probably our most serious and somber.  How could it not be?  We each shared with each other exactly where we were on 9/11/2001.  Some of us watched the entire thing unfold live on television and others did not realize the magnitude of it all until that evening.  There was a huge range of emotions shared and we all agreed it was an incredible bonding experience.
Because 9/11 was such a pivotal moment in American history, we also shared with each other "life-altering" moments from our own personal lives.  Deaths, births, job changes, good teachers, good counselors, etc.  Each of these experiences brought us to where we are today and we enjoyed sharing them with each other.

A fun-filled evening talking with Franz Wisner, author of Honeymoon with My Brother, was complete with this fun game, which gave us the opportunity to share some surprising, revealing and romantic stories from our own honeymoons.  As our newest member Dorie said, "I feel like our stories are what make us unique as human beings and the sharing of them among company eager to hear them unites us."

It was hard not to talk about death when discussing In Cold Blood.  The book was a compelling and shocking read, and truthfully, it was difficult to come up with a game to play.  We decided to share how we would want to spend our last days on earth.  Such a straightforward writing assignment, yet there was so much variety.  Our true personalities came out as we learned who wanted to leave a refrigerator full of food for her children, who wanted to have tea with her mother and who wanted to travel to Hawaii, and so on.  It was a great way to even deepen our friendship.

Finish the following sentences:
When I was a child, my parents (mom, dad, family, etc.) used to...
When I was child, my friend's parents (mom, dad, family, etc.) used to...
Now I...
The author of Stealing Buddha's Dinner spent a lot of time wishing her family was more like her friends...and boy could we all relate!  We all had stories to share of how our parents made us go to bed early, or were always late picking us up, and how we wished they were different.  It was interesting to see how many of us are now raising our kids in similar or dissimilar ways!

We all were able to sympathize with tall and blond Barbara who was living in Japan and who, at times, felt completely "out of place".  So, we shared our own stories of parties, jobs, colleges and bars where each of us felt "out of place".

In Plum Wine, the main character, Barbara, received a chest of homemade wine from her friend Michi, and this gift inspired all of us.  We shared with each other gifts we've been given (and gifts that will continue to be given) that were significant and  meaningful. 

We had some pretty differing opinions on Amish Grace, but we all agreed that the story of forgiveness was inspiring.  We each shared our own stories of people we want to forgive and people we've forgiven.  We really opened up with each other and this night ended up being one of our best, even though we were missing two members.  Even a book that many people disliked could encourage us to share stories from our life.

We all agreed that this was the most difficult and least enjoyable book we've read so far.  Although there were a ton of positive reviews on all sorts of book websites, and it came highly recommended, we all thought this book was horrendous.  Kellie made up this "pop-quiz" to see how much of the book we were able to absorb.  Dorie received the highest grade, with 12 right out of 20.  If you've recently read Possession, try taking our "Possession" Pop Quiz!

        Although we did have differing opinions on the book, Three Cups of Tea, we all agreed that Greg Mortenson was an inspiration to us all.  For our stories, we shared people or things that are our inspiration.

    It was clear to all of us, that Denny's passion was car racing.  Because we all knew each other so well, we thought it would be hard to share our passions, so we decided to share our "secret" passions!  These were pretty funny.  Kerrie's passion was Mom's Reading!  Click here to read her story!

        We were so inspired by Enzo's story, that we shared stories of our own pets.  And in true, Enzo style, our pets were the narrators.  How fun it was to hear the voices of all of our pets!

Throughout the month, we all had to give Kerrie a picture of us from the 1980's.  She then made this display with all of our faces covered up.  We had to figure out which one of us went with each picture.  To further confuse us, she added pictures of Shelley Long, Alyssa Milano and Madonna.  We had a blast with this one!

            After reading Greg Mortenson's story about how he literally changed people's lives and did his part to "make the world a better place", we were motivated to try to do our part.  We each wrote down on paper a "goal" for 2009, trying to follow in his footsteps.  These stories we did not share with the group, however.  They were placed in a sealed manila envelope, to be opened December of 2009.

Correct answer:  A

Sister Stories
        Since all nine of us have at least one sister, we decided to share our own stories in honor of Clemente and Louisa, the two sisters in Julia Glass' book, I See You Everywhere.  The stories were all funny and sweet and surprising!

        There was so much information in Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, about life in the late 1800's and the bustling world's fair.  We shared stories of times we had to convince someone of something (much like the architects and engineers and had to convince the world to have the fair in Chicago) and stories about being completely overwhelmed or underwhelmed when we went somewhere for the first time.  Who knew Niagara Falls was such a hit with so many of us?

       We were all inspired by Julia Child's life and her cooking skills.  We loved reading her story and how she remembered so many of her meals (in incredible detail).  We shared with each other some meals that we remembered!  A few of us even wrote about our book club meals.

            In keeping with out "mystery theme", we brought our dishes without planning it ahead of time!  Would we end up with 10 desserts?? Before our meeting, we emailed Kerrie our predictions for the evening.  We ended up with 2 soups, 2 salads, 2 appetizers, 4 desserts and 2 breads (and not one of us predicted correctly)!

Kerrie came up with this game after reading Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea.  Mr. Rochester was warned by a complete stranger that his wife was "mad" but he did not want to listen to this "unsolicited advice".  Although this was a challenge finding times in our lives when we were either the bearer or the recipient of unsolicited advice, the stories we shared were entertaining and interesting.  A pregnancy announcement surprised all of us!

Laura came up with this game after reading Jane Eyre.  We had to share a story from our own lives that mirrored one of Jane Eyre's experiences.  So, Laura asked us, "What is your Jane Eyre experience?"  Stories consisted of pleasant surprises, shocking surprises, our most frightening experience, our best meal, our worst meal and a romantic proposal.   We had a blast sharing stories from the past.