This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral-Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!-in America's Gilded Capital

Rebecca's pick was a political non-fiction book called This Town:  Two Parties and a Funeral--Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!--in America's Gilded Capital, by Mark Leibovich.

Despite great reviews on Amazon, none of us were crazy about this book.  I don't think anyone made it past the first five chapters. 

To make up for our unfulfilling read, Rebecca invited us to Half Moon Bay to a restaurant owned by some friends, called Ground-Up Burgers.  They were having a cooking demonstration and holiday shopping event, and we filled up on delicious burgers and chips and freshly-made ginger ale.  All their food is made from local (very local!) ingredients.  It was a great location to (not really) discuss our book.

The Secret Lives of Sports Fans

Jen does some stats

(Write-up by Jennifer)

We met up on July 14th.  This time around, Karen's bookclub pick was The Secret Lives of Sports Fans by Eric Simons.  Karen had a special treat in store for us - a visit with the author!

Before the visit, we discussed the book and even took a test called the Sport Spectator Identification Scale, which is designed to measure a fan's level of devotion to a sports team.  We all thought Lisa would have the highest score given her passion for sports.  But as it turns out, Karen's devotion to the Montreal Canadiens scored higher than Lisa's love of the Jets. (We think maybe it all came down to the fact that Lisa does not wear Jets clothing.)  Jen's love for the Sharks ranked third followed by Cathy's devotion to ...  (rather acknowledgement that there is some baseball team in the bay area (what is it called?) oh yeah ...) the Giants.

Then Eric Simons came over to talk to us about what it was like writing the book.  We learned that it took a number of years, a lot of dedication, and support from loved ones.  Our biggest question was, what is it exactly that makes a sports fan a sports fan?  The answer is that it is not so simple because it can't be boiled down to just one thing.  The experience of being a sports fan is unique for each individual.  But one factor that struck Eric as being fundamental was family and personal culture.

We wrapped up by having a little book signing.  Lisa brought a few extra copies for Eric to sign - 15 to be exact! 

As a follow up, we all agreed that it would be interesting to measure our testosterone levels.  Next bookclub, we'll have to bring some test tubes.

A big thank you goes out to Eric and his family for taking the time to visit our bookclub and to Karen for organizing.