Normally, I try to blog within a week or so of our meeting, while the book and everyone's comments are fresh in my mind. But here we are, 3 1/2 weeks after our meeting, and I'm starting to understand that Baron has a point about my abysmal note-taking. "No, Archimedes, you're just being hard on yourself," I hear you say. Well, here's what I'm working with for the book discussion of Bossypants (except in my messy handwriting):
Book - Bossypants
- dealing w/sexism; struggle to the top
- Bossypants - accurate description - not really
- accurate?
- lessons she learned - relatable
- [Diesel] humbling experience of auditioning
- Name of our autobiography
- "Can I have a do over?"
- "24 and learning" [Diesel]
- "Nosey" [Deuce]
- "Hindsight is 20/20"
- interesting choices for her, career focused
4 [Deuce]
2 1/2 [Indy]
3 [Baron]
3 1/2 [Diesel]
This is what I give myself to work with. Now on the one hand, this reflects what an utterly poor choice I am for secretary. However, on the other, it is a testament to my memory skills that I normal construct a blog from notes as scant as these!
So, from these notes, I recall that we kicked off the meeting (after having some refreshments) with general thoughts on the book. We noted that it was interesting to read about Tina Fey's struggle in the competitive industry of comedy to succeed, and we were surprised by the sexism she faced in that industry. Indy and Deuce noted the "rough" language in the book. Overall, we didn't think that "Bossypants" was necessarily an accurate title, because she didn't seem very bossy. (I have no idea why I wrote "accurate" twice - suffice it to say, I'd had some wine by this point in the meeting.) We talked about the lessons that Tina learned through her experiences, and Diesel related to the experience of auditioning and shared her own experience. Kudos to Diesel; I have never been brave enough to even attempt it. We all tried to think about what we would name our autobiography - I'm not sure if Indy's was "Can I have a do over?" and Baron's was "Hindsight is 20/20" or vice versa. We wound up the meeting by noting that it was interesting to see what stories from her own life that Tina Fey chose to include in the book, and we noted that the focus of the book was definitely on her career rather than her personal life. The numbers are our ratings of the book overall.
As always, the blog summary of the discussion is a poor reflection of lively Novel Spirits' discussion. And, as always, I am looking forward to our next meeting! I can't believe that we are down to our last 3 books. UNBROKEN is proving to be a real page turner!
Unrelated, but I am going to use the Novel Spirits blog platform to plug my latest obsession: the Hamilton Broadway musical. I've been listening to the soundtrack practically 24/7; I highly recommend it. [Disclaimer: there is some "rough" language in the Broadway musical, and several of the songs are raps, which may not be everyone's thing. To be honest, rap is not my regular choice of music, but it won me over. Give it a chance.] It was inspired by the biography ALEXANDER HAMILTON by Ron Chernow.
On a sad note: I saw in the paper today that Pat Conroy, one of the authors Indy has recommended, has pancreatic cancer. :(
Sorry to end on a sad note, but this blogger has to hit the hay. Happy reading, Spirits!
I'd like to hear about Diesel's audition experience, maybe at a future meeting?
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