It’s one of those things that just happened.
But it takes friendship and some love for books to make it come to life.
So Lerks and I have started our Saturday Book Club. It wasn’t planned to be – it was just some crazy bantering over breakfast of homemade bread at her kitchen nook one day.
We had had breakfast and some masala chai and we’d adjourned to her spacious, comfy porch. It was a bright Saturday morning. Ai Lee had come a tad late but she was forgiven – she brought some utterly delicious appam from the Pulau Tikus market.
You know those moments when out of banter comes some serious talk.
The talk came around to books.
We started sharing about our fave authors.
Of course Lerks and Ai Lee didn’t have the hots for the marketing and business books I read. I couldn’t blame them. If you’re not in business, reading business books can be rather dry and trying (not to mention totally unapplicable to real life….at least I have the chance to try out some ideas in our business).
They started telling me that life (and women’s skin) start changing once you hit 40. I was like, OK. (And now you wonder why I stuff my face with goji berries and black sesame seeds and raw almonds?)
Goji berries are legendary for keeping you healthy all over while black sesame seeds are nutritious and get this, help your hair remain lustrous and silky and most importantly, black as a raven. Raw almonds is another snack I have on hand at all times. They’re chockfull of Vitamin E for again, great skin and great hair.
I love talking to my girl friends. They keep me real and feed me all sorts of fascinating information. From aging gracefully, we sauntered to books we love. That’s when Ai Lee and I spoke with such passion about Maya Angelou’s books that Lerks had to google for a podcast interview on Maya Angelou.
That’s how our Saturday Book Club was born.
We agreed to meet for breakfast and of course share about the books we love and bring along some books for an exchange.
But you know life gets in the way especially when Lerks has 3 kids with a part-time job, and Ai Lee’s a full-time teacher and me being me. So dates got pushed about, postponed, and all (amidst holidays and work and life).
We did meet – last Saturday – and despite Ai Lee going AWOL, Lerks and I and her sister, Ling, had a good two hours to talk about books we hated, books we loved.
I brought 3 books for Lerks – Jung Chang’s powerful Mao: The Unknown Story, Julia Childs’ My Life In France and Lisa See’s On Gold Mountain.
Above photo shows what she loaned me.
All authors that I’ve never read before but these are books that came highly recommended so I shall give them a spin. Though these days, time is always in short supply. So much to read, do, plan!
We did agree that Virginia Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic was one of the worst (and most traumatic) books we both read as teenagers.
Maybe one day our Saturday Book Club will be as famous as Oprah’s Book Club!
for you & yr girlfriends who r book lovers, the big bad wolf sale is now on. super bargains! you can google it.
Hi Petite Nyonya – haha, everyone told me about it, expecting me to dash to it. I was in Selangor over the Christmas break but I refrained from going anywhere near that sale. I heard TOO many good things – how books are cheap, how wonderful they all were. I concur but I had spent more than I had to at the 2 other book sales in Penang (one was Book Excess too). Thanks for the heads-up though!
Into the Wild is a fantastic read based on a true story. It was also converted into a movie later on – also well-worth the watch! =)
Finished reading it. It’s rather sad that a young man had to die of mold poisoning in an abandoned bus. He had this big idea of going and living in the wild but I think he was just frustrated or even felt disappointed in his family. Hence he had to “get away” for a while.
Your stack of books look…intimidating. And here I am recommending you to read Troy Chin’s The Resident Tourist. I picked the book up when I was at Changi Airport, flipped thru the pages, and thought, ok, looks good to entertain my on my 6 hours flight to Tokyo. I finished the book in an hour. It is a comic book, actually..so if you want a cerebral read with many many words and letters to fog the reading glasses, sorry. Wont do. Just lots of cartoon drawings and funny, funny speech bubbles. Today i’m going to Kino and get RT part 2, 3, 4 and 5. Reading is fun..
Su Ping – hey! I am surprised you found my blog. I don’t mind comics or cartoons you know. It’s just that people think I like a lot of words. Sometimes, not all of the time. I am still halfway through Neil Humphreys. Can’t read too much of him at one go. Can become TOO Singaporean! I’ve become a big Wodehouse fan, thanks to you ;-). Now reading one……and have another on the side as backup.