Book Club

As most of you know, I joined the AFIT Spouse book club right after I got here. Well, we have this great bookstore here (Books & Co) that regularly has authors come and do readings and promotion for their book. So far, we've gone to 3 of those. This last one, we decided to take pictures of the event.

We did it a little backwards this month...We usually read the book first, and then go to the event at Books & Co. This time, we picked the book, based on the fact that the author would be here, and then we're going to read and discuss a few weeks later.

This newest book is called The Spellman Files, by Lisa Lutz. A few of us were sick of the dark, depressing, heavy books we've been reading, so we wanted something light and funny this time. This book definitely fits the description.



At Books & Co on Wednesday night, instead of the author herself reading passages from the book, she called on people from the audience (all 10 of us) to help her read some of the characters. The excerpts she picked to have read were hilarious! So I knew right away that I would like this book. I did not volunteer to read, but one of the girls from our book club did, which was cool (only 3 of us actually made it to this event).



After the readings, and the Q&A time was over, we had a chance to have the author sign our book. Apparently, she said something really funny, because I'm laughing my head off.



And here are the only 3 ASPA book club members who showed up. The author was pretty excited to know that we were reading it for a book club. She even offered to do a call-in!



Just to give a little synopsis of the book, here's what the inside flap has to say (I started to write something in my own words, but then realized that there are people who get paid to do this, so their words are way better than my words):

"Meet Isabel 'Izzy' Spellman, private investigator. This 28 year old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors - but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, black-mail, and wiretap a Spellman.

Part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry, Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, aka Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her 14 year old sister, Rae (who's become addicted to 'recreational surveillance'); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed 'Lost Weekends'). But when Izzy's parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy's new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there's hitch: she must take one last job before they'll let her go - a 15 year old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life."