For 16 years I have been meeting monthly with my book group friends. We like to note that we had a book group before Oprah. We named our group We're Booked and members have floated in and out over the years. I took 18 months off as I completed my master's program and was so happy to have time to once again read for pleaure. So on this Good News Sunday I want to say thanks to my bookish friends for:

 the conversations,

thought-provoking comments,

"field trips",

lovely lunches,

delicious wines

and camaderie over these years.

I've read books I never would have chosen on my own accord and am richer because of it.

~Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. ~

The first sentence from Emma by Jane Austen. The first book we read in We're Booked in February 1996.

Here is a complete list of the books we've read the past 16 years. It amazes me when I read through this list. We're really tried to read a broad variety over the years including a classic now and then and that is my favorite thing about being in our group. How many of those on our list have YOU read? Do you have a favorite?

 We’re Booked Reading List

1996:

Inaugural Meeting – February 1996

Emma – Jane Austen (Mar)

Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquival (Apr)

My Antonia – Willa Cather (May)

Snow Falling on Cedars – David Guterson (June)

Cold Sassy Tree – Olive Ann Burns (July)

Beach Music – Pat Conroy (Aug)

Ladder of Years – Ann Tyler (Sept – We named ourselves We’re Booked! Oprah’s Book Club was created – copy cat!)

The Bean Trees – Barbara Kingsolver (Oct)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe (Nov)

Pigs in Heaven – Barbara Kingsolver (Dec )

1997:

The Horse Whisperer – Nicholas Evans (Jan)

[January 14 we went on our “Gabaldon Getaway” to Cupertino to meet our idol!]

The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx (Feb – Our 1 year anniversary.)

Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison (Mar)

Cross Creek – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Apr)

She Flew the Coop – Michael Lee West (May)

Bone – Fae Myenne Ng (June)

The Temple of my Familiar – Alice Walker (July)

Object Lessons – Anna Quindlen (Aug)

The Sixteen Pleasures – Robert Hellenga (Sept )

 A Civil Action – Jonathan Harr (Oct)

She’s Come Undone – Wally Lamb (Nov)

A Literary Christmas – Compilation (Dec)

 1998:

Wicked – Gregory Maguire (Jan)

The Pull of the Moon – Elizabeth Berg (Feb)

The Giant’s House – Elizabeth McCracken (Mar)

A Map of the World – Jane Hamilton (Apr)

The Romance Reader – Pearl Abraham (May)

Animal Husbandry – Laura Zigman (June)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith (July)

Salt Dancers – Ursula Hegi (Aug)

Under the Tuscan Sun – Frances Mayes (Sept)

The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood – Rebecca Wells (Oct)

Life Estates – Shelby Hearon (Nov )

 A Cup of Tea – Amy Ephron (Dec)

 1999:

The Mistress of Spices – Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Jan)

Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier (Feb )

 The Hundred Secret Senses – Amy Tan (Mar)

Charming Billy – Alice McDermott (Apr .)

 Your Oasis on Flame Lake – Lorna Landvik (May )

 Flaming Iguanas – Ericka Lopez (June)

The Reader – Bernhard Schlink (July)

Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden (Aug)

Where the Heart Is – Billie Letts (Sept)

Dear Exile – Hilary Liftin (Oct)

The Inn at Lake Divine – Elinor Lipman (Nov)

Hannah’s Daughters – Fredriksson (Dec)

 2000:

Tender at the Bone – Ruth Reichl (Jan)

A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving (Feb)

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister – Gregory Maguire (Mar)

April meeting cancelled. We took a field trip to UOP to hear Frances Mayes and enjoyed her southern-accented Italian.

 Crooked Little Heart – Anne LaMott (May) 

Lost Horizon – James Hilton (June)

Body and Soul – Frank Conroy (July )

 Middlemarch – George Elliott (Aug ) 

House of Sand and Fog – Andre Dubus III (Sept)

Midwives – Chris Bohjalian (Oct)

Cry to Heaven – Anne Rice (Nov)

In December we met informally to discuss books we were reading outside of book group and enjoyed the holiday season together.

 2001:

The Ladies’ Man – Elinor Lipman (Jan)

The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver (Feb)

 Waiting – Ha Jin (Mar) 

Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind – Ann B. Ross (Apr)

The Red Tent – Anita Diamant (May)

I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith (June)

Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain (July)

Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates (Aug )

 Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels (Sept) 

Saying Grace – Beth Gutcheon (Oct)

Warriors Don’t Cry - (Nov)

In December we again met informally to discuss books we were reading outside of book group and enjoyed the holiday season together.

 2002:

Songs in Ordinary Time – (Jan – This month 5 of us went to S.F. to see/hear/meet Anthony Bourdain and had him sign our favorite passages in the book Kitchen Confidential.)

Jemima J – Jane Green and Life is So Good – George Dawson & Richard Glaubman (Feb)

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte (Mar)

Joy in the Morning – Betty Smith (Apr)

 How Green Was My Valley – Richard Llewyelln (May ) 

The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood (June)

 Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West – Anne Seagraves (July) 

The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen (Aug)

Cheaper by the Dozen – Frank B. Gilbreth,Jr. (Sept)

The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold (Oct)

Back When We Were Grownups – Ann Tyler (Nov)

Annual holiday potluck and “extra-curricular” book sharing (Dec)

2003:

The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway (Jan )

 The Hours – Michael Cunningham (Feb) 

Passage to Juneau – Jonathan Rabin (Mar)

Big Stone Gap – Adriana Trigliani (Apr)

Empire Falls – Richard Russo (May)

Bel Canto – Ann Patchett (June )

 The Other Boleyn Girl – Phillipa Gregory (July) 

Seabiscuit – Laura Hillenbrand (Aug)

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress – Dai Sijie (Sept)

 The Dive From Clausen’s Pier – Ann Packer (Oct) 

Life of Pi – Yann Martel (Nov)

Atonement – Ian McEwan (Dec)

2004:

Our January meeting was cancelled L Sad, sad, sad…

Three Junes – Julia Glass (Feb)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – (Mar)

Motherless Brooklyn – Jonathan Lethem (Apr)

No Hurry to Get Home – Emily Hahn (May)

Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Patton (June)

 The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud – Ben Sherwood (July ) 

Ella Minnow Pea – Mark Dunn (Aug)

Good Grief – Lolly Winston (Sept)

A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry (Oct)

(Nov)

If Ever Two Were One: A Private Diary of Love Eternal – Brian Sullivan (Technically, there was no December meeting this year. We had our holiday meeting Jan 2. Everyone brought leftover goodies to share.

 2005:

Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris (Jan)

Lost in a Good Book – Jasper Fforde (Feb)

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd – Jim Fergus (Mar)

Plainsong – Kent Haruf  (Apr)

 Waiting – Debra Ginsberg (May) 

Ya Ya’s in Bloom – Rebecca Wells (June)

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency – Alexander McCall Smith (July)

In This House of Brede – Rumer Godden (Aug)

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons – Lorna Landvik (Sept)

Sleeping With Schubert – Bonnie Marson (Oct)

The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini (Nov)

The Magnificent Ambersons – Booth Tarkington (Dec)

 2006 – Our Restaurant Year:  we met in restaurants instead of homes this year.

A Walk in the Woods – Bill Bryson (Jan )

 A Million Little Pieces – James Frey (Feb)

The Queen’s Fool – (March)

 C'est La Vie – Suzy Gershman and Paris to the Moon – Adam Gopnik (Apr)       

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – Lisa See (May) 

 A Widow for One Year – John Irving (June)

 FREAKONOMICS – Steven D. Levitt,  & Stephen J. Dubner (July)

  The Girl in Hyacinth Blue – Susan Vreeland (Aug)  

The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank (Sept)

 The Memory Keeper's Daughter – Kim Edwards (Oct)

 On the Road – Jack Kerouac (Nov ) 

The Men I Didn’t Marry – Janice Kaplan & Lynne Schnurnberger (Dec)

 2007: 

Mountains Beyond Mountains – Tracy Kidder (Jan)

Gilead – Marilynne Robinson (Feb – 10 year anniversary!) 

March hostess flaked – and was banished from the group ;-) – so we were a book ahead 

Swan – Frances Mayes and The Cotton Queen – Pamela Morsi (Apr )

 Rise and Shine – Anna Quindlen (May) 

 Rain of Gold – Victor Villasenor (June) 

A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khalid Hosseini (July) 

The Reading Group – Elizabeth Noble (Aug) 

 September mtg. cancelled. Memorial for group member's father today. 

 A Long Way Gone – Ishmael Beah (Oct) 

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World:  An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children – John Wood (Nov)

Madame Bovary (Dec) 

2008: 

Five Quarters of the Orange – Joanne Harris (Jan) 

The Measure of a Man – Sidney Poitier (Feb) 

Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen (Mar) 

The Thirteeth Tale by Diane Setterfield (Apr 13^th) 

The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett (May 6) 

Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson (Jun) 

The Uncommon Reader – Alan Bennett (July)

 The Glass Castle – Jeanette Walls (Aug) 

Love Walked In – Marisa de los Santos (Sept) 

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid – Bill Bryson (Oct)

 Spirit House – Christopher Moore (Nov)

 A Thread of Grace – Mary Doria Russell (Dec)

 2009: 

Loving Frank – Nancy Horan (Jan) 

Book group mtg. cancelled. (Feb – March 1^st Hanna House tour)  

Musicophilia – Oliver Sacks (Mar ) 

The Year of Living Biblically – A. J. Jacobs (Apr)

 Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert (May) 

March – Geraldine Brooks (Jun)

 A Reliable Wife – Robert Goolrick (Jul) 

The Little Book – Selden Edwards (Aug)

 The Emperor’s Children – Claire Messud (Sept) 

The Help - Kathryn Stockett (Oct) 

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson (Nov)

2010:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Annie Barrows(Jan)Truck: A Love Story- Michael Perry (Feb)

Floating in My Mother's Palm - Ursula Hegi (Mar)

Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen (Apr) 

Night Train to Lisbon- Pascal Mercier(May) 

Johnny Got His Gun- Dalton Trumbo & Call of the Wild –Jack London (June)

 The Late Lamented Molly Marx- Sally Koslow ( July) 

Pictures at an Exhibition- Sara Houghteling ( Aug) 

The Well and the Mine – Gin Phillips (Sept)

 Honolulu- Alan Brennert (Oct) 

Olive Kitteridge-Elizabeth Strout ( Nov)

A Gate at the Stairs- Lorrie Moore ( Dec)

*Update* I added our 2011 choices thus far. 

2011:

Summer at Tiffany's- Marjorie Hart ( Jan)

Such a Pretty Fat- Jen Lancaster (Feb)

A Tale of Two Cities- Charles Dickens ( Mar)

Cutting for Stone-Abraham Verghese (Apr)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks- Rebecca Skloot (May)

Gift From the Sea- Anne Morr Lindbergh (June)

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand- Helen Simonson (July)

The Beach House- Mary Alica Monroe (August)

Unbroken- Laura Hillenbrand (September)

In the Neighborhood- Peter Levinheim ( October)

The Paris Wife- Paula McLain ( November)

A Moveable Feast- Ernest Hemingway (December)

2012

State of Wonder- Anne Patchett (January)

Steve Jobs-  Walter Isaacson (February)

Anything to keep kids reading is worth the effort. Love what this school did.