A Pumpkin Patch…?

Greetings Blood Nymphets!

Our first meeting is rapidly approaching, the meeting location may seem questionable to you but once you arrive at the destination you will be glad you made the trip. The journey to the meeting will take you along gentle, wine country roads and you will see the grape leaves turning the fog-kissed hillsides from deep green to fiery orange.

You may even see a few belties along the way!

The meeting location is a beautiful pumpkin patch next to a wine country market/café (Marketplace) and a small farmers market. The picnic area is located right next to Marketplace. Bring some wine-country snacks to share and a camera! This is a photogenic location with big sunflowers and all varieties of pumpkins.

11:00am on Sunday October 17, 2010

~ Sookie Stackhouse, by Charlaine Harris, books 1-2
Meeting will be a potluck picnic brunch at Stanly Lane Pumpkin Patch at the wooden picnic tables next to the Marketplace.
3100 Golden Gate Drive
Napa, CA 94558-6191
Leave a comment to RSVP

We are still searching for a November location... Any suggestions?

Vampires, sex and books...oh my!

Feedback from everyone this week is that we are all willing to descend into the dark, sexy, improbable world of Sookie’s vampire chronicles.

Thank you for topics this week. We are pleased that V-Town Book Club is quickly becoming a fun yet debased coterie.

Because most of us are waiting for our books to arrive, here are some discussion topics based on HBO’s True Blood (no spoilers please, some of us haven't seen season 3):

True Blood title is a play on the word “Blood”:

• About vampires drinking blood, humans drinking V
• About vampires being the only True Blood, which Godric questions and tries to atone
• About lineage, in the series vampires (Bill) honor or (Jessica!) despise their human lineage (bloodline) and also their vampire lineage: Makers & Kings & Queens
• Ray Bradbury often spoke about how most of his novels resulted from a habit of playing an early morning game of word association while he was still freshly connected to his dreams. Is the evolution of the vampire myth a result of significant word associations to “blood”?

And now some topics that descend into pure, bloody debauchery:

• If a vampire gets a hair cut could they ever grow it out? Or do they need to cut their hair every day? Erik gets a hair cut on the show but his hair doesn’t seem to grow back the next day. However Jessica's hymen keeps growing back…
• Season 1 was excellent because of the massive sexual tension of wanting to live vicariously through True Blood and fuck a vampire who doesn't want to kill us, which is a different sexual tension than wanting to have sex with a vampire who does want to kill us.
• And more importantly, can a male vampire ejaculate?

Thank you Kim and Dalila! We will talk about the complexities of vampire intercourse and vampire anatomy during a book club meeting where the wine will be flowing!

Sucking on another topic, this economy is draining many of us dry right now. If you would like to participate in Book Club but can’t justify the price of this series send an email and we’ll arrange a book-share program.

Excellent topics so far showing that discussion boundaries extend far and wide.

***Thank you for the blog title Gina!!!

2011 Meeting Dates / Books

Return to Sookie
11am on Saturday January 22, 2011 ~ Sookie Stackhouse, by Charlaine Harris, books 5-6
Hope you like apple fritters!
Scotty's Cafe
1645 Tennessee St
Vallejo, CA 94590

1pm on Saturday February 13, 2011
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
Dish over Brunch at Nicole's place
Oakland, CA
RSVP on FB and we'll email you the address

6pm on Saturday March 19, 2011 Maguire's Pub
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Anne Rice
145 Kentucky Street
Petaluma, CA
http://www.maguirespub.net/about.html

April 2011 ~ meeting place to be determined, Book to be determined

May 2011
To honor the math-heads, business nerds and baseball nuts in our group the month of May will be:

Moneyball: the art of winning an unfair game by Michael Lewis

As an added bonus the movie about this book will also be released in 2011, hopefully in time for our book club discussion!

We will hold our discussion meeting at a Sacramento River Cats baseball game at Raley Field in Sacramento. The River Cats are a minor league team and the Triple A affiliate of the Oakland A's (the subject of Moneyball). Raley Field has all the usual baseball food (garlic fries!) and fireworks after Saturday night home games.

http://www.raleyfield.com/directions/

This will be a Book Club family event so prepare to bring the significant others, siblings, good buddies and the kiddies!

11am on June 18, 2011 ~ Book to be determined.
Vallejo Pirate Festival
Marina Green
Vallejo, CA 94590
Scheduled early so we can find parking and claim our booty before the place is overrun by pirates. Sexy wench attire required.
Pirate Festival

July 2011 - Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn
Evening potluck picnic, day to be determined
Sonoma Plaza (Sonoma Square)
1 The Plz
Sonoma, CA 95476

August 2011, day to be determined, book to be determined
Meeting Place
Sonoma County Fairgrounds
Wine Country Horse Racing Track

2010 Meeting Dates / Books

Greetings!

11:00am on Sunday October 17, 2010 ~ Sookie Stackhouse, by Charlaine Harris, books 1-2
Meeting will be a potluck picnic brunch at Stanly Lane Pumpkin Patch at the wooden picnic tables next to the Marketplace.
3100 Golden Gate Drive
Napa, CA 94558-6191
Leave a comment to RSVP

6:30pm on Friday November 12, 2010~ Sookie Stackhouse, by Charlaine Harris, books 3-4
Cast Iron Grill & Bar
700 Main Street, Suite 104
Suisun, CA
http://castirongrillandbar.com/

Sookie Break
7:00pm on Friday December 10, 2010 ~ Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris
Meeting will be a holiday party at Angela's house in Vallejo
Inspiration for the theme is I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, by Amy Sedaris
Potluck food and decor to be provided by Club Members
Leave a comment to RSVP

Sookie!

Because we love True Blood on HBO we are reading the Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set.

Hopefully this doesn't kill our appetite for Season 3 (still waiting for the release on Netflix)!

Seems like a fast read, so we are proposing to read 2 books each for each Sookie meeting.

Order the boxed set here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0441018238/?tag=befast-20

Email discussion questions that you would like to post to this blog.

Here are some suggested questions for works of fiction, we realize they are a bit generic and hope to hone them down to more relevant questions as we read through the series:

• What specific themes did the author emphasize throughout the novel? What do you think he or she is trying to get across to the reader?
• Do the characters seem real and believable? Can you relate to their predicaments? To what extent do they remind you of yourself or someone you know?
• How do characters change or evolve throughout the course of the story? What events trigger such changes?
• Did certain parts of the book make you uncomfortable? If so, why did you feel that way?
• Did this lead to a new understanding or awareness of some aspect of your life you might not have thought about before?

Here's to bloodthirsty and vampy reading this fall!