British Book Group

I found this to be a page-turner in its own right.

The book we read this time round was the memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson. It's about a woman who was adopted as a baby into a Pentecostal family in a poor, working-class part of England. It turns out she's gay, and that doesn't sit well with her religious fanatic adoptive mother.

Most of the eight of us really liked it--Julie, who prefers fiction, had a hard time getting into it and I think found the pace a bit slow. Karen was raised in a Pentecostal family, so we loved getting her perspective.

What a wonderful book. I couldn't wait to get back to it every time I put it down. I hosted our group tonight @ 6:30 and we had some themed foods. Since it's British, Elly brought a steak & ale pie from The Pie Store in town. It was delish, with a perfect pastry top. Anne Quinn brought excellent bean salad--the author talked a lot about beans on toast, but we didn't want to go that far. I made shrimp scampi b/c there's a reference in the book to going out for scampi. And Karen made a big, tender, buttery, pineapple-upside down cake from a Paula Deen recipe. OMG, it was so good. Chosen b/c when Jeanette comes back from Oxford on break--with a friend from Africa--Jeanette's mom serves pineapple everything. She heard that people from Africa eat pineapple. Turns out the friend doesn't like it at all. Not so with Karen's dream cake! We had squares of it with a pot of tea.

The book is a quick read, and beautifully crafted. Good night.

TCOY

1. Support group. Connected with someone whose thinking I like.
2. Walked Puff around the block.
3. Biked to Mass--Palm Sunday.
4. Really deep and restorative nap.
5. Laughed and smiled and looked around the table, so glad to know my seven friends. Seems somehow that we are growing up together.