Recycle Book Club (formerly VHOB Book Club) Makes Its Debut at Recycle Books

I don't blog much about our book club, but Thursday night was kind of momentous.  After having 9 authors come to Village House of Books (plus one who called in from Kentucky) for the VHOB Book Club, we had our 1st book club meeting (now called Recycle Book Club) at Recycle Books in Campbell.  I guess the venue doesn't matter as much as having the author come to the meeting, but it still felt a little strange.  Here's the good news:  Besides having a great evening with Jana McBurney-Lin and Hi-Dong Chai, authors of Blossoms and Bayonets (a semi-autobiographical story of a 6-year old during the Japanese occupation of Korea in WWII) we also have gotten amazing support from Recycle's manager, Stacy, and her staff - especially Kevin, who helped me carry chairs in from the car, set them up, and then take them down (while I gallivanted off to dinner).  He was also available for anything else we needed.

We have authors lined up through January.  And Stacy already has books in stock for every one of our upcoming authors.  When you walk into the store, there is a bookshelf to the right of the cash register.  And in the top shelf is at least several copies of each book. Not only that, but on the top of the bookshelf, Stacy has our next upcoming author with a blurb about our book club (I'll get info to her on the October author, Shelly King, in the next couple of days).  Here is a list of who we've got coming up:

October 28, Tuesday - Shelly King, The Moment of Everything
November 18, Tuesday - Joshua Safran, Free Spirit:  growing up on the road and off the grid
December 2, Tuesday - Natalie Baszile, Queen Sugar
January 13, Tuesday - Stuart Rojstaczer, The Mathematician's Shiva

People, I can't tell you how much fun it is to have an author on site to answer questions and sign books.    If any of you live in the South Bay Area (San Jose, CA and environs), you might want to come to one of our meetings.  There is no time obligation associated with our book club.  You can come once, several times, all the time, or not at all.  You can come and see the author even if you haven't read the book.  If you can't make it, you can even leave a book for us to have personalized and signed by the author.  (And, get this - there is no RSVP!  How cool is that?)  We meet from 6:30-7:15 to discuss the book and come up with our questions.  And then the author is there from approximately 7:15-8:15. If you want to be on our email list, just to keep up with what's happening, feel free to let me know.  You can email me at lloydrrussell@gmail.com and let me have your email address.

For those who are hearing/reading about our book club for the 1st time, here are the authors that we have had since we began the book club in January:

January 7 -        Michael David Lukas - The Oracle of Stamboul
February 18 -    Amy Franklin-Willis - The Lost Saints of Tennesse
March 6 -          Karen Joy Fowler - We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves
                          Rayme Waters - The Angels' Share
April 1 -            Beth Hoffman (by phone) - Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
April 16 -          Tracy Guzeman - The Gravity of Birds
May 6 -             Nate Jackson - Slow Getting Up
June 19 -           Katie Hafner - Mother Daughter Me
July 30 -            Keith Raffel - A Fine and Dangerous Season
August 20 -       Ellen Sussman - A Wedding in Provence
September 18 -  Jana McBurney-Lin, Hi-Dong Chai - Blossoms and Bayonets

I've got 3 pictures of our Thursday night authors.  They were taken a few months ago when they both appeared at the Los Gatos Library 3rd Tuesday Night Book Club (of which I am a member).