Dinner Club With a Reading Problem

whistling past the graveyard (book review)

June 6, 2015

Friends, I have been wanting to tell you about this book for several weeks but just keep putting it off because the story washed over me in such a wonderful way that I didn’t want to rush through my review of it. Whew! I barely feel like I can relay to you how beautiful and impactful it is. I really want you to read it, ok? And I really think you should have your kids read it, depending on their ages. Encourage your family and friends to read it. Suggest it to the educators in your life. Make sure you purchase a copy; don’t just borrow one. You’ll want this around for years to come, and I bet you’ll have the urge to lovingly mark it up, too.

Okay. Let’s begin.

The book that has me so riled up is Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall.

Our famous little Oklahoma book club devoured and discussed this way back in March. We met here at the farm late that month and had a fun evening together eating great food, loving on each other, and talking over what we all agreed is destined to become a modern American classic.

The buffet table just before we started loading it with edible treasures.

My first plate heavy with said edible treasures. We earn our moniker rightly.

My smart, hilarious, beautiful, long time friend Steph and me. You may recall Steph is our token non-reader, but she has been reading! The world is off its axis! — My smart, hilarious, beautiful, long time friend Steph and me. You may recall Steph is our token non-reader, but she has actually been reading! The world is off its axis!

Melissa with Fancy Louise the chicken and Chanta the horse, who was really greedy for her affection that night. So fun! — Melissa with Fancy Louise the cuddly hen and Chanta the cuddly horse, who was really greedy for Melissa’s affection that night. So fun!

Dinner Club With a Reading Problem always has a memorable time together. Y’all know that by now. But this book, assigned to the group by Seri after she randomly spotted it one day at Target, really got our attention.

********************

The story is set in 1963 in the Deep South. It follows a precocious, not always pleasant, but in the end very lovable little girl and the adults closely attached to her life. Together they experience normal childhood stuff plus one grand (and sad) adventure as well as fascinating cultural scenes from that region at that time and the racially charged tension that often occupied it.

Whistling Past the Graveyard holds its own with books like The Help and To Kill a Mockingbird, both of which our book club has read and discussed. We have also read Seven Days in May by beloved Oklahoma author Jen Luitweiler, another bit of historical fiction about social turbulence, racially charged issues, cultural differences, and the like. So it’s fair to say we have a good base for tackling these themes. This newest title not only added to our repertoire; it also deepened our conversations. A lot. Something about the characters Crandall wrote and the way they are all a mix of good and bad, whether black or white or rich or poor, something about that peeled away even more layers. Our discussion that night was fascinating and too short. We all thought this book warranted more talk time.

For all the painful, universal broad strokes in a story like this, there is also a deep ocean of personal love for the reader to swim in. Personal stories are where the big stories really happen anyway, right? These pages are loaded with believable moments when you feel like you are right there in the characters’ faces. Lots of tangible affection and terribly acute heartache, too. I could share beautiful quotes like this from throughout the book, but I just really want you to read it for yourself. I will personally be enjoying it again and again, just like Grapes of Wrath. It has a classic, better-every-time-you-read-it sort of magic. Flipping through my dog-eared pages I already miss the fabric of the story, its thick, soft, patchwork-quilt quality, the very real characters and emotion Crandall conjured up. The spiritual lessons. Everything! Just wonderful, nourishing, entertaining stuff from the very first page to the last.

By the way, this book is a mere 308 pages, and the story moves fluidly. Smoothly. You should be able to tuck it in between more laborious titles with ease, and I suspect it will refresh you deeply. Spoiler Alert: You will probably cry at some point, but don’t give up and stop reading. Promise me you will finish to the end.

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Okay, that’s it for now! Have you read Whistling Past the Graveyard? If so, what did you think? If not, are you now tempted to grab it and gobble it up this weekend? Tell me everything.

“Sometimes laughin’ is all a body can do, child.
It’s laugh or lose your mind.”
~Susan Crandall Whistling Past the Graveyard
XOXOXOXO

dinner club with a reading problem turns four!

January 31, 2015

Hello, and happy Literary Saturday! This week I want to send a big, loving, grateful anniversary wish to all of my book club girls. This month Dinner Club With a Reading Problem is celebrating four years together. Four years! And I am so happy.

What started as just a fun way to socialize and indulge in a favorite past-time has blossomed into a truly nourishing wellspring. Something that feeds us and challenges us in unexpected ways. What a wonderful surprise to discover such a sisterhood at this stage in life.

Our "Red Dress" photo shoot at the Oklahoma State Capitol in 2013. This was an event aimed at awareness of heart disease for women, a gesture of love for our own Stephanie. — Our “Red Dress” photo shoot at the Oklahoma State Capitol in 2013. This was an event aimed at awareness of heart disease for women, a gesture of love for our own Stephanie.

Over the past four years our membership and attendance has fluctuated a bit, ranging from the four original women to about 26 at one point, now hovering at close to a dozen. Most of our gatherings enjoy the energy and glow of nine or ten amazing friends who feel a lot like sisters now. Sometimes our husbands or children make happy appearances. And a few times we’ve welcomed out-of-town guests, which is the best. We’ve also been incredibly fortunate to interview our chosen authors three times.

We schedule dinners about every six to eight weeks, depending on the time of the year. The hostess sets a food theme, sometimes related to the book and sometimes to the season, and we all run with it to build a ridiculous pot-luck style feast. The DCWRP ladies are all excellent cooks and luxurious shoppers, so no one goes home hungry! Our name, after all, points clearly to our food obsession. By this time next week we will have gathered at Kerri’s house to discuss Goldfinch, and the dinner theme is salads. I am so excited! Because, KALE.

We take our carbs seriously.

Though the aim of each gathering is to review and discuss the book we’ve just read, then plan the next event, book club now is all about the friendship we share. We have become closely knitted together, and no matter what is happening is each other’s life we always feel safe and supported. We share marriage and dating stuff, changing family dynamics, career stress, grief, joy. All of it. We are a group of excellent listeners, and if that isn’t the breeding ground for friendship then I don’t know what is.

An excerpt from The Help.

We’ve experienced ups and downs ourselves, too. Like any group of friends (especially women?) we have had conflict and separation, then gentle and happy reunions, and we’ve learned a lot about each other along the way. This book club has a wonderful momentum that just carries us not only from one title to the next but from one life event to the next. And I am so grateful.

Speaking of titles, I should be ale to tell you easily how many books we’ve read together, but I can’t. It’s a lot, that’s for sure. We probably read six or eight per year, at different paces depending on the volume and the busy-ness of the months. (Ahem, Bonhoeffer anyone?) Sometimes we choose two books at once if we are craving two types of literary nourishment.

Our book selection process is a bit random, but it does allow everyone a chance to have input. We simply draw names at the end of each meeting, and that person comes to the next discussion dinner with the title we’ll read that next go-round. This way she has time to look around and make a great choice. With such a variety of personalities and lifestyles in our little tribe, we have enjoyed a wide array of reading material. I love it so much!! Most books we read I might never have considered on my own, and everyone would probably say the same.

When I wished my friends a Happy Fourth Book Club Anniversary, a few of them offered these sweet words…

This warms my heart!

And just for fun, here is a list of wacky traditions we’ve accidentally formed at Dinner Club With a Reading Problem:

Whenever possible, we get Amber to narrate aloud a racy passage from whatever book we’re discussing. She has the perfect voice and sultry countenance for it. It’s awesome.
We always eventually descend into uproarious laughter. We’re neither quiet nor terribly ladylike. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Somehow we always work into the conversation something about whether or not we wash our new bed sheets before using them. It’s a more divisive topic than you’d expect.
Melissa brings us the most amazing coconut-lime cake you have ever even dreamed of. It’s the perfect balance of delicate and decadent, and when she brings it we know it’s a special occasion.

Stephanie is our group’s token non-reader, but she does make a valiant effort. We love to check in with her to see if she has read more this time, and she loves to tease us about whether a book is being made into a movie.
Everyone loves to tease me about two books I have chosen over time: Don Quixote and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Just, whatever you guys.
We have an official logo hand drawn by Joanna, and we’ve made it into t-shirts! In fact I am wearing mine as I type this.

The world is filled with all sorts of book clubs. Big and small, corporate and private. They’re all special. But none of them compares to this group. Dinner Club With a Reading Problem possesses a magic which none of us has alone. As a group we enjoy something that makes each of us better, and this coming year I look forward to seeing how we push that energy out into the world. Ideas abound!

Thank you for your friendship, ladies. Thank you for every page we’ve read together, for every bite of sweet and savory food we’ve shared. Thank you for the tears and laughter. You are the shiz-nay. Happy Anniversary!!

“That’s What She Said.”
~All of us at some point
XOXOXOXO

Dinner Club With a Reading Problem strikes again xoxo (and a biscotti recipe)

January 6, 2015

This past Saturday night our famous little Oklahoma book club, affectionately known as Dinner Club With a Reading Problem, gathered again for food, fellowship, and more fun than a small group of women might legally be allowed to enjoy. It was technically not a book discussion dinner, as we are between titles; we were just in withdrawal from not seeing each other over the holidays. We missed lots of pretty faces, but those of us who were available all met at Seri’s house, which is not too far from the farm. (Bonus for me!) She served us a really luxurious shrimp boil dinner complete with potatoes, smoked sausage, and corn on the cob. The rest of us brought appetizers or desserts, keeping well to our chosen moniker.

We never go home hungry.

We also never go home sad or bored or feeling alone. This is a really special group of friends, and we are increasingly grateful for each other. Also? We are increasingly grateful for each other’s strict discretion. RIGHT, LADIES?

What happens in book club stays in book club.

We also enjoyed thick cucumber slices topped with creamy cheese and tomatoes from Kerri (pictured above kissing the elk with me). Homemade peanut brittle from Tracy. Pillowy soft banana bread DeLana brought from a church fundraiser, and a massive veggie tray provided by Steph, which included a weirdly spicy (and addictive) roasted-something veggie dip. Who brought the crab meat dip? And those cashew clusters? Oh man! I am hungry again.

I took two edibles with me Saturday night. One was an appetizer inspired by Smitten Kitchen. It was basically sweet grapes and salty olives roasted together with some spicy stuff then served with plain ricotta cheese and stale sourdough slices. It was pretty good! but I overcooked it all just a bit and really preferred the combination raw. Dressed with good olive oil and a few spices, the salty-sweet grape-olive bites were super delish, juicier.

Okay, the second edible I contributed to our fun dinner party was an accidental biscotti worth repeating. It’s not like that little cranberry-almond number from November (the base is different) but is, I guess, true enough by definition in that it was baked twice. So, close enough? Anyway here it is, in all its three-recipes-mashed-together glory:

“Fancy Chewy Dark-Chocolate Browned-Butter Oatmeal Pecan Biscotti”
chewy, crunchy, sweet, & filling
also healthy… because of the oats, nuts, & dark chocolate? : )

What you need:

1/2 cup shortening
1 stick butter (melted & browned)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
big splash of vanilla
2 cups quick oats
1/2 cup pecan halves
1 bag of dark chocolate chips

What you do:

This is easy! It’s basically just cookie dough, baked twice, with a couple of extra steps in the middle.

First, brown the stick of butter in a small skillet. (Don’t cheat and use the microwave! You’ll need this buttery skillet again soon.) Let the butter cook till bubbly and brown then remove skillet from heat. Let it cool while you gather everything else and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
In one large bowl, cream together the shortening and butter then mix with one cup of the flour plus all the sugars, eggs, vanilla, and baking soda. This is the nice, thick beginning of your dough. Add to that the quick oats and the last half cup of flour, mix well.
In that buttery skillet from a few minutes ago? Pour the pecan halves and toast them a little bit. Just scoot them around long enough to become fragrant and glossy, not change color. Add these pecans along with the bag of dark chocolate chips to the cookie dough and stir to mix well.
Okay, as with any biscotti, just form the dough into a flat, even rectangle on a cookie sheet. No greasing is necessary since the dough is so buttery. The thickness is up to you; just remember that it spreads out a little in the hot oven. Bake for about 20 minutes then allow it to set up a bit at room temperature. It needs to be firm enough to cut.
Now using a large, serrated knife, cut the rectangle in half lengthwise then into maybe half-inch strips. Or however you want! I like to plan on dipping my finished biscotti in a cup of perfect coffee or glass of icy cold milk.
Flip the once-baked strips onto their cut sides and put the pan back into the oven for another fifteen minutes or so, or long enough for all the edges to become crispy. Not burned, just cooked and crunchy. Don’t worry; it will still have a nice tenderness and chewiness, thanks to all that butter and oatmeal.
Once the twice-baked slices are out of the oven, let them cool completely. Done! See? Easy. And so delicious. The next morning I may or may not have eaten two of these with perfect coffee, despite having sworn off further carb indiscretions after our fun Saturday night.

Incidentally, the most recent book we discussed was a true crime story, Stranger in My Bed by Michael Fleeman. Our group gave it mixed reviews. The next title we’re working on is a relatively new release, Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. This one is long, so we are happy to have a little extra time to have read around the holiday season. I’m really enjoying it so far! Feel free to read along and share your thoughts here when I post a review late in January. We’d love that!

How about you? What have you been cooking lately? What is on your book shelf? What does your little tribe of friends do to stay connected? I bet it involves food…

“Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking
if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. “
~Voltaire
XOXOXO

Seven Days in May (book review)

July 15, 2014

I’ve just enjoyed a fresh new slice of historical fiction, one I highly recommend you snag and enjoy for yourself. It is Seven Days in May by Jennifer Luitweiler, the same author who penned Run With Me which I reviewed about a year and a half ago.

Seven Days in May by Jennifer Luitweiler

Once again, Dinner Club With a Reading Problem was dazzled and blessed to receive Jen as our guest of honor. Last Friday night she endured our girlish antics, warmed the room with her smile, and shed wonderful insight to this newly released book, her most recent labor of love.

Jen Luitweiler and me. (Look! DCWRP is so fancy we have t-shirts!)

Seven Days in May is a quick (237 pages) but absorbing read about the 1921 race riots in Tulsa, Oklahoma, including ramp-up action before that. It was an interesting and tumultuous time right between Emancipation and World War II, a time when race inequality, violence, and the oil boom in this part of the country both revealed and tested social norms.

Tulsa was the Magic City that erupted from the soil just like the oil that could make anyone, regardless of color or creed, a millionaire. With rapid prosperity come major growing pains. With so many people spilling into this boom town, we may guess that the riot was inevitable. It is against this setting that our story begins.

This novel tells the stories of several people, two families in particular, living the ground-level realities of this churning social atmosphere. Luitweiler does a wonderful job tethering the historical facts to completely relatable human nature. She illustrates cold, hard headlines with colorful personalities, family drama, and character background that, if they don’t make you sympathetic to the villains, at least make you step back to see them as part of a whole. Her storytelling makes it impossible to read about race division with a cold heart. The emotional landscape of the book is not only believable; it’s palpable. Absolutely engaging.

The two main characters are coming-of-age girls named Mercy and Grace. These names, by the way, are just perfect for their respective characters. One is white, one is black, and their families are intertwined in both common and fascinatingly uncommon ways. One of the elements of this book I most enjoyed was the author’s skill at so fully plumbing the feminine depth. The way these girls and their mothers relate to each other, especially their non verbal communication, was a long, soft poem to the reader.

In our conversations with Jen we learned that the feminine angle was a strong motivator for writing the book in the first place. Where were the women of this time? Who were the wives and daughters of the men in the newspapers? She did an incredible job conjuring up the feminine energies.

Is Seven Days in May suitable for all young readers? Maybe not. The story keeps its head well above graphic sensationalism, but still it contains violence and even one rape scene. It almost has to, as this chapter of history was not pretty. One thing I want to mention here is the author’s deliberate choice to not write with racially specific dialect. She explained to our book club that since it was not in her natural comfort zone to write it accurately, she did not want to risk using it inappropriately. I respect that. She handled so much delicate material with great care, this included.

Hydrangeas and coconut-lime cake for our guest of honor. xoxo

Once again, I am pressed to say that this level of historical fiction is what will get the younger generation to learn from the past. It may also be exactly what gets the older generation to discuss it. (As Oklahomans we were all a bit stunned to realize how little we have been taught on this chapter of our own history.) Happily, we understand that several schools in Tulsa, where the author and her husband are raising their beautiful flock, are circulating the book as an annex to textbook curriculum. They are also accepting Jen as a guest speaker. How wonderful! What an incredible opportunity those classrooms have been given. Let’s all hope together that the material sparks important passions in the students there. Let’s also hope together that this generation learns something important from the hard truths of our communal past.

If you have time for one more hope, let it be that Jen’s work is picked up by the Oprah network. The same week that her book was released, the powers that be descended on Tulsa to collect interviews and do research on the 1921 race riots for a full-blown television special. We are all pulling for her that Seven Days gets exposure, of course, but also that the wide audience Oprah enjoys will benefit from Jen’s hard and loving endeavor.

Anger is the strangest thing. Anger is visiting a horrifying fun house, without the fun.
It is like wearing glasses in the wrong prescription or walking through life upside down.
It is an ugly mask, a veneer of venom that covers the open sore of hurt, disappointment,
betrayal, or misunderstanding.
Anger is alive and destructive like no war ever was.
~Jen Luitweiler in Seven Days in May
XOXOXOXO

How perfect that Mama Kat invited us to share a book review this week.
Click over to her cool site to see lots of other great posts.
Not the least of which is her own story about easy, comfortable friendship. I loved it.

Love Never Left Us

June 22, 2013

Last night our famous little Oklahoma book club, Dinner Club With a Reading Problem, gathered for another lively and loving evening. It was my turn to host here at the farm. To add even more fun to the story, the scheduled event fell in the middle of our vacation time with nieces and nephews.

Once again, this week and next Handsome and I have a house full

of wonderful children who belong to other people.

I have not yet taken the time to stop and write about

all the fun we’re having with them this week!

So much. The farm is absolutely buzzing

with activity and laughter, love and memory making.

All my old fears about being adequate for a group of kids this age

have dissolved in the fun soup of chlorine water and home cooked meals.

My heart is actually healing in unexpected ways, too.

And instead of stress I am feeling homesick already for when they leave.

So last night my book club girls descended on us in their usual affectionate ways. They were, as always, armed with delicious edibles and intelligent remarks about the book we were discussing, A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. More importantly, though, they brought compassion, insight, and wisdom. These are gifts we share with each other no matter what the topic; but with a title like A Return to Love that draws so much gritty, sometimes uncomfortable introspection, the gifts are a balm on open wounds.

Have you read this book? It’s brimming with inspirational but also controversial themes. Here I wrote about my first gut reactions to the book. The seven of us who gathered did not agree on it across the board. And because our group is so diverse and we all feel so free to speak our minds, last night I had the chance to see the book in a different light. I learned more about my friends, too, and feel even closer to them now for the learning. Whether we individually “liked” the book or not, one common thread between us was the timeliness of the material. Whatever each of us gained from reading it, whether glowing inspiration or painful personal challenge, seemed to be received at a time we really needed it. And sharing our thoughts and feelings with each other just kind of intensified the experience.

Our fun lasted for several hours, from the heat of rush hour traffic to the moonlit dark of night. We grazed on good food, though perhaps less of it than usual; the summer heat has possibly zapped our appetites. We watched as two of my three resident teens, Sammy and Koston, made fast friends with Tracy’s daughter Lauren and her friend Sophie. They swam and told ghost stories and seemed to bond as well as lifelong friends ever do. We welcomed my third resident sweetie Harley as a guest in our discussion. She is an avid young reader, eager to discuss things in depth, and has a craving to start her own book club. We purchased for quarters and dollars several piles of castoff books out of the trunk of Seri’s minivan. We watched the llama family and tolerated the screaming parrot. Some of us played with frogs and jumped on the trampoline. Some of us most certainly did not.

We shared fears about serious illness and the spider-webbing effects it can have on life. We talked a lot about parental relationships, both abstractly and intimately. My friends had good advice for me, and they cannot know how much I appreciate it. We talked about the human ego, the female tendency to berate ourselves while glorifying others, and the difficult power of taking long hard looks in the mirror. Somehow, probably because we all needed it, the talks kept circling back to the mechanics of surrender. Once you know you should turn something over to God, or faith, or Love, or prayer, however you express that yourself, how do you actually go about doing it? What does surrender look and feel like? What are the dance moves, so to speak? And how powerful is the imagination, after all?

I’ll eventually get around to writing a proper book review, but here are some of the quotes we shared with each other as among our favorites. All are directly quoted from the book and belong to Marianne Williamson:

I accept the beauty within me as who I really am.

***

That which is surrendered is taken care of best.

***

What we withhold from others, we withhold from ourselves.

***

We can’t really give to our children what we don’t have ourselves.

***

Faith is the acknowledgement of union.

***

We create what we defend against.

***

Sharing our gifts is what makes us happy.

We’re most powerful and God’s power is most apparent on earth,

when we’re happy.

I love my book club so much. I love every single woman here and miss dearly those who have moved on. I love the community we have built. I love the growth we enjoy. I love the recipes we share. I love our mutual addiction to books and reading. I love that we all get excited when we discover a young woman wanting to start her own book club at school.

The downstairs of our house is still happily littered with crumb-dusted serving plates, stacks of used books, a bowl of grapes, and a few empty glasses. The Apartment is still full of sleeping beauties. The red wicker lawn furniture is draped in damp beach towels and errant socks. At midnight I filled the dishwasher and ran it but didn’t have the heart to clean everything up. As always, the loving vibrations are too irresistible to swipe away so soon. I just want to wrap up in the feeling and find all of my people and wrap them up too. Especially my babies, my girls who are nearly women now. Please pray for them.

Thanks so much for another invaluable night, friends. We have real love among us. I am still trusting that amazing miracles are in store for each of you. At the farm we are enjoying a return to love in so many ways, the biggest being the realization that Love never left us.

All You Need is Love
xoxoxoxo

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