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| Power Style Wellness Connections |
BOOKclub
What Are They Reading?
By Elaine Rooker Jack and Janet C. Blake
Photos by Jolea Brown
Who they are: Titles and Tales Book Club: Barbara Boroughs, Shirley Harris, Pat
Heitz, Norma Henriques, Susan Michal, Ann Puffer, Eleanor Schultz, and Margaret
Smith.
First meeting: “Eight, nine, 10 years ago,” Margaret says. Nobody’s quite sure.
How they got together: They were originally an offshoot from a homemakers club.
Since then, members have come and gone, and they recruit mostly by word of mouth.
Susan, for instance, met Margaret at her daughter’s dance class. When Margaret
invited her to a meeting, “my daughter says I practically skipped out to the car,”
Susan laughs.
Their meetings: Titles and Tales meets at 9:30 a.m. on the last Friday of the month at
Karen’s Book Barn & Java Stop, 127 E. Main St., in LaGrange. It does not meet in
July, August, or December.
Their extracurricular activities: Titles and Tales tries to go on at least one book-
related trip a year. This month, they are visiting the Smith-Berry Winery in Henry
County, where they will have a picnic and hold their meeting. They decided to visit
Smith-Berry after reading Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow last year. Berry, a farmer and
well-known Kentucky author, is part-owner of the winery, which is on a cattle and
tobacco farm in Newcastle.
In December, they have a Christmas get-together, usually at Ann’s house. “We’re
supposed to be reading a book at Christmas, but we never discuss it,” Ann says,
laughing. The festivities include a “Dirty Santa” gift exchange in which participants
can steal each other’s gifts. According to Pat, that’s when “all the niceness goes
away.”
Their occupations: Legal secretary, registered nurse, librarian, piano teacher, retired
medical office worker, homemaker.Books they recommend:
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
• Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
• Being Dead Is No Excuse by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays
Books they don’t recommend:
• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
What they are reading this month: The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by University of
Kentucky associate professor Kim Edwards.
Why they picked it: It was one of the most popular book club choices in the United
States in 2006, plus it is by a Kentucky author, and this club favors books by
Kentucky authors. They put it on their 2007 list because it was one of several titles
offered by the Oldham County Public Library as part of a book club kit that included
10 copies of the book and a discussion guide.
What it’s about: The story of Dr. David Henry of Lexington who delivers his own twins
— a girl and a boy — one snowy night in the 1960s. The girl is born with Down
syndrome, and the doctor secretly gives the baby to his nurse to take to a Louisville
institution while telling his wife, Norah, the child has died. The nurse, instead, raises
the child as her own.
What they thought of it: The reaction is mixed. Eleanor has very strong negative
feelings about the book, while Margaret says, “I wanted to keep reading it.”
Some of their conversation about David and Norah:
“I was wondering, even if he had told his wife, wouldn’t it have been likely that they
would have put the child in that institution?” — Susan
“I don’t think she would have kept that child because she was too self-centered.” —
Shirley
“The bottom line was he didn’t want to be left out while she took care of this baby.” —
Pat
“Do you think he would have been put in jail?” — Ann
“No, because it was the 1960s.”
— Eleanor
“But he signed the death certificate.”
— Susan
How to join this club: This club is actively seeking new members. For more
information, call Susan Michal at (502) 241-2212.
If you are looking for a place to hold a book club meeting in Oldham County, Karen’s
Book Barn has openings. Call Karen Eldridge at (502) 222-0918 or email her at
karensbooksnjava@bellsouth.net.
KAREN’S BOOK BARN OWNER KAREN Eldridge carries over extra chairs to a bright
corner of her jam-packed book and coffee shop along the train tracks in LaGrange.
She loves hosting Titles and Tales because they are so much fun. “They laugh and
laugh,” Eldridge says as she grinds coffee for the day’s customers. “I love to hear
them laugh.”
As members arrive, they put in their coffee orders at the counter and some buy a
muffin, too. It’s catch-up time: They fill each other in on the latest news of their
husbands and their parents. A freight train goes by right outside the front door — this
is downtown LaGrange’s claim to fame — and fills up the view out of the floor-to-
ceiling windows. “We get quiet when the train goes by,” Shirley says. But that’s the
only time they are quiet.
Susan Michal, a librarian at the Oldham County Public Library, leads the meeting and
the discussion about this month’s book. She is clearly in her element, moving the
discussion along at a brisk pace to cover as many aspects as possible in one-and-a-
half hours. As they tackle the issues of family tragedies and family dynamics
presented in the novel, the members bring to the discussion several moving, true
stories of families they know or experiences they have had.
A little more than halfway into the meeting, a shopper comes over and asks what the
group is doing. They explain that they are having a book club meeting. “May I join?”
the shopper asks, and she is greeted with an enthusiastic, “Of course!” by the
friendly group. Thus the membership grows by one.
Their rules:
• Since they don’t meet in July and August, they choose a longer book for those
months.
• They try to mix up their choices between fiction and non-fiction and “try to read
something everybody suggests,” Susan says. They stick with paperback books, but
once they decided on a book that was available only in hardcover, so they just
passed a copy around.
• “We try to say, if something is shared of a personal nature, we don’t take it out,”
Susan says. In other words, what happens in book club, stays in book club.
• Everyone has a say. And if a
member doesn’t feel comfortable talking or doesn’t want to read the book choice or
come to the meeting that month, that’s okay.Elaine Jack at elainej@iamtodayswoman.
com is a regular feature writer for Today’s Woman magazine. Janet Blake is filling in
for her as Elaine recovers from an accident.
What Are They Reading?
By Elaine Rooker Jack and Janet C. Blake
Photos by Jolea Brown
Who they are: Titles and Tales Book Club: Barbara Boroughs, Shirley Harris, Pat
Heitz, Norma Henriques, Susan Michal, Ann Puffer, Eleanor Schultz, and Margaret
Smith.
First meeting: “Eight, nine, 10 years ago,” Margaret says. Nobody’s quite sure.
How they got together: They were originally an offshoot from a homemakers club.
Since then, members have come and gone, and they recruit mostly by word of mouth.
Susan, for instance, met Margaret at her daughter’s dance class. When Margaret
invited her to a meeting, “my daughter says I practically skipped out to the car,”
Susan laughs.
Their meetings: Titles and Tales meets at 9:30 a.m. on the last Friday of the month at
Karen’s Book Barn & Java Stop, 127 E. Main St., in LaGrange. It does not meet in
July, August, or December.
Their extracurricular activities: Titles and Tales tries to go on at least one book-
related trip a year. This month, they are visiting the Smith-Berry Winery in Henry
County, where they will have a picnic and hold their meeting. They decided to visit
Smith-Berry after reading Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow last year. Berry, a farmer and
well-known Kentucky author, is part-owner of the winery, which is on a cattle and
tobacco farm in Newcastle.
In December, they have a Christmas get-together, usually at Ann’s house. “We’re
supposed to be reading a book at Christmas, but we never discuss it,” Ann says,
laughing. The festivities include a “Dirty Santa” gift exchange in which participants
can steal each other’s gifts. According to Pat, that’s when “all the niceness goes
away.”
Their occupations: Legal secretary, registered nurse, librarian, piano teacher, retired
medical office worker, homemaker.Books they recommend:
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
• Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
• Being Dead Is No Excuse by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays
Books they don’t recommend:
• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
What they are reading this month: The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by University of
Kentucky associate professor Kim Edwards.
Why they picked it: It was one of the most popular book club choices in the United
States in 2006, plus it is by a Kentucky author, and this club favors books by
Kentucky authors. They put it on their 2007 list because it was one of several titles
offered by the Oldham County Public Library as part of a book club kit that included
10 copies of the book and a discussion guide.
What it’s about: The story of Dr. David Henry of Lexington who delivers his own twins
— a girl and a boy — one snowy night in the 1960s. The girl is born with Down
syndrome, and the doctor secretly gives the baby to his nurse to take to a Louisville
institution while telling his wife, Norah, the child has died. The nurse, instead, raises
the child as her own.
What they thought of it: The reaction is mixed. Eleanor has very strong negative
feelings about the book, while Margaret says, “I wanted to keep reading it.”
Some of their conversation about David and Norah:
“I was wondering, even if he had told his wife, wouldn’t it have been likely that they
would have put the child in that institution?” — Susan
“I don’t think she would have kept that child because she was too self-centered.” —
Shirley
“The bottom line was he didn’t want to be left out while she took care of this baby.” —
Pat
“Do you think he would have been put in jail?” — Ann
“No, because it was the 1960s.”
— Eleanor
“But he signed the death certificate.”
— Susan
How to join this club: This club is actively seeking new members. For more
information, call Susan Michal at (502) 241-2212.
If you are looking for a place to hold a book club meeting in Oldham County, Karen’s
Book Barn has openings. Call Karen Eldridge at (502) 222-0918 or email her at
karensbooksnjava@bellsouth.net.
KAREN’S BOOK BARN OWNER KAREN Eldridge carries over extra chairs to a bright
corner of her jam-packed book and coffee shop along the train tracks in LaGrange.
She loves hosting Titles and Tales because they are so much fun. “They laugh and
laugh,” Eldridge says as she grinds coffee for the day’s customers. “I love to hear
them laugh.”
As members arrive, they put in their coffee orders at the counter and some buy a
muffin, too. It’s catch-up time: They fill each other in on the latest news of their
husbands and their parents. A freight train goes by right outside the front door — this
is downtown LaGrange’s claim to fame — and fills up the view out of the floor-to-
ceiling windows. “We get quiet when the train goes by,” Shirley says. But that’s the
only time they are quiet.
Susan Michal, a librarian at the Oldham County Public Library, leads the meeting and
the discussion about this month’s book. She is clearly in her element, moving the
discussion along at a brisk pace to cover as many aspects as possible in one-and-a-
half hours. As they tackle the issues of family tragedies and family dynamics
presented in the novel, the members bring to the discussion several moving, true
stories of families they know or experiences they have had.
A little more than halfway into the meeting, a shopper comes over and asks what the
group is doing. They explain that they are having a book club meeting. “May I join?”
the shopper asks, and she is greeted with an enthusiastic, “Of course!” by the
friendly group. Thus the membership grows by one.
Their rules:
• Since they don’t meet in July and August, they choose a longer book for those
months.
• They try to mix up their choices between fiction and non-fiction and “try to read
something everybody suggests,” Susan says. They stick with paperback books, but
once they decided on a book that was available only in hardcover, so they just
passed a copy around.
• “We try to say, if something is shared of a personal nature, we don’t take it out,”
Susan says. In other words, what happens in book club, stays in book club.
• Everyone has a say. And if a
member doesn’t feel comfortable talking or doesn’t want to read the book choice or
come to the meeting that month, that’s okay.Elaine Jack at elainej@iamtodayswoman.
com is a regular feature writer for Today’s Woman magazine. Janet Blake is filling in
for her as Elaine recovers from an accident.