Book Club Exchange - Stacie of Sincerely Stacie

Welcome to Book Club Exchange, a regular feature on Booking Mama which highlights anything and everything book club-related! Today, I'd like to welcome Stacie from Sincerely Stacie. She is stopping by today to share some information about her book club with us. I always enjoy learning about other groups, and I especially love seeing what other ones have read!

I live in a small rural community in Iowa with a population of about 700. A group of moms decided to start a book club the summer of 2005. It began with just few moms and then a few left and some new ones started. We are now a solid group of 10 moms ranging in age from their 20’s – 40’s. We are a group of SAHM, a librarian, teachers, business owners, and professionals. We meet once a month on Monday nights, taking turns hosting in our homes. There is always great food and beverages and two of our younger members bring their babies for the rest of us to get our baby fix! Because we live in such a small community, our children are in the same classrooms, sports activities, and we go to church together. We share each others achievements as well as struggles and I consider them family. I don’t know what I would do without my book club gals. We used to just be the Mom’s Book Club, but we are now the Van Horne Literary Society, renamed after reading The Guernsey and Literary Potato Peel Pie Society.

Our book choices used to come from the privilege of hosting book club that month. But, then we got out of that habit. Now we take recommendations from members as well as our librarian and I, who keep up on all the books that other book clubs are buzzing about. Since we do an interlibrary loan, we usually can’t read books that have just been published. They usually have to be out for a year or so before we can request them from other libraries to get enough for each member. We were fortunate to win a phone discussion with Joshua Henkin, author of Matrimony which was fun for our group, especially one of our members who is an aspiring writer!

Some of our favorite reads and most memorable discussions were: Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, The Red Tent, My Sister’s Keeper, The Secret Life of Bees, Change Me Into Zeus’ Daughter, The Glass Castle, The Kite Runner, Life of Pi, Water for Elephants, The Next Thing On My List, and This I Know for Sure. As you can see from our list, we read mostly fiction. Sometimes we need a light (fluff) read and other times we dive in to something heavy. There are definitely books on this list that I never would have read if it wasn’t for book club!

Our book club reads:

Divine Secrets of Ya Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvick
The Red Tent by Anita Diamont
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Shoot the Moon by Billie Letts
Back Roads by Tawnie O’Dell
The Five People you Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Best Friends by Martha Moody
Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner
A Year By the Sea by Joan Anderson
Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
Change Me Into Zeus’ Daughter by Barbara Robinette Moss
The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Work of Wolves by Kent Meyers
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
The Dive From Claussen’s Pier by Ann Packer
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The #1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Cruisie
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond
The Next Thing on My List by Jill Smolinski
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Down River by John Hart
The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brasheres
This I Know for Sure by Wally Lamb
The Shack by William P Young
Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman
Matrimony by Joshua Henkin
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
Seduce Me by Carly Phillips
The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck
The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry

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Stacie is a former social worker, current SAHM of 3. Her youngest will be entering kindergarten in the fall, and is wondering what the future holds for her now after 10 years of being at home. She loves reading, playing the piano, baking, and playing board games with her family. She is blessed with a wonderful life and likes to share her thoughts and daily snippets of life along with a few book and product reviews on her blog, Sincerely Stacie. She wants to thanks to all the other book bloggers who have introduced her to so many wonderful books.

A huge thanks to Stacie for sharing some information about her book club with us. If you are interested in participating in a future Book Club Exchange, please contact me at bookingmama(at)gmail(dot)com.