SEPTEMBER 27th MEETING NOTES

Hello Novel Spirits, We have another successful and enjoyable book club meeting in the books, and I'll summarize the business portion complete with the obligatory chastisements for all. Let us revisit all the chastisements:

Deuce was chastised for not having our shirts ready for us at the meeting. Shame on you Deuce!

Indy was chastised for not updating her "Off the Grid" segment on the blog. Luckily for her, some proactive, organized, prepared individual took the initiative and squared away that segment. Who was that masked hero who came in and saved the day? Whoever it was deserves an entire year free of chastising. Seriously though, the "Off the Grid" segment is very informative and I like it a lot. So I guess I should be careful with my teasing.

Baron and Archimedes still owe $1 each for club dues. Just like those cheapskates, always trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents. And I freely admit that I have failed to post weekly blogs which was my initial goal. But how can I neglect my army of loyal Twitter followers??

JB and Cat didn't seem to be chastised according to the notes I am referencing, which just doesn't seem fair at all. So let's see..... JB and Cat: you all failed to bring enough wine. So you just go sit in time out and think about what you've done! Next time I may be forced to bust out the wooden spoon.

Diesel seems to have eluded chastisement this month as well. I must say Novel Spirits, we are just not acting like ourselves these days. I don't even know you anymore! You are going down a path that I cannot follow! You're breaking my heart! Sorry, I felt the need to input some Star Wars quotes just now. It's probably out of my system, at least until this post is completed.

Gilligan also received chastisment for not coming to the meeting. He was off looking at a moonbow. I have to admit I've never even heard of a moonbow. And it appears as though Gilligan is following down that same dark, spiraling path as Waldo. Is there even a Gilligan? Inquiring minds want to know.

Okay, I guess that's all the chastisments for this meeting. Maybe.

JB and Cat have created their own addition to our club as well. They've been bringing a stack of books to meetings to offer up to anyone who may want to borrow them to read. And the rest of us are encouraged to do the same. Baron and Archimedes participated in the book exchange, but mostly out of luck really. We had a stack of books out in our garage ready to be donated, and since this meeting was at our house, we conveniently had several books to offer up. Hooray for us!

And another custom we started doing is discussing other books any of us is reading or interested in reading and wants to share with the group. So here are the ones discussed this meeting:

Indy read THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE by Lou Berney. No further information.

JB read the most recent T.C. Boyle book THE HARDER THEY COME because it is set in northern California. No further information.

Cat read WICKED by Gregory McGuire. No further information.

We talked about the new movie THE MARTIAN coming out soon, which is based on a book. So we discussed reading that book since it seems very interesting (at least for science fiction fans).

I, Baron, have completed the first Sherlock Holmes story A STUDY IN SCARLET by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I was inspired to read these books after we read and enjoyed MORIARTY. I am ashamed to say that I have never read any of the Sherlock Holmes stories. But I plan to now. There are a few that can be described as short novels, but the majority of the stories are short stories so I can just read them sporadically and each one shouldn't take very long. And some critics have named Sherlock Holmes as the best fictional character every created. That's quite a title, so if for no other reason, I will read them for that.

And as a follow up to Sherlock Holmes, Archimedes recommended that we all watch the BBC series SHERLOCK, which is a modern adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes stories. The shows are very good, although I have to point out that the reason Archimedes loves it so much is not so much about the quality of the show, but the particular actor who plays Sherlock: Benedict Cumberbatch. Easy ladies, I already know. FYI, henceforth Benedict shall be referred to as "He Who Shall Not Be Named".

This completes the business portion of the meeting. As always, I enjoyed it and had a lot of fun hanging out. I didn't make curry, which for a couple reasons, was probably a wise decision.

Next meeting is October 25th at 2pm at Deuce's place. Archimedes will follow on soon with the post on the MORIARTY book discussion.

Until next time Novel Spirits! Oh and I almost forgot, I'll have a home-brewed Oktoberfest beer ready to bring to the next meeting for everyone. However, it appears that most of us (myself not included) are not beer drinkers. Oh well