Book Club Weekend: Every Day

Two years ago (April 2013) we celebrated our book club's 10th anniversary with a weekend away to Sonoma.  We had so much fun, we decided to do it again!

This year, we all traveled to Liz's beautiful home near Dallas, Texas.  Friday night, Liz whipped up a Texas feast:  home-made guacamole, queso, Frito Pie, and tamales.  Plus margaritas with home-made sweet and sour mix. 

On Saturday morning we rode at various times... some people went running, some people for a walk, and we all enjoyed more of Liz's food for brunch.  In the afternoon, we headed out for massages, followed by some time floating in the pool.  Saturday night, we had dinner at Harvest, which was delicious, plus dessert at Sugarbacon.

Saturday night was a singalong with Amy on ukulele and Jen on piano.

Oh yeah, we also read a book.  ALL of us finished this one, woo hoo!  We read YA novel "Every Day" by David Levithan, about a person who wakes up in someone else's body (someone new) every day.  This works out until the person falls in love.

More photos can be found on my Flickr site.

Thinking, Fast and Slow...

 On August 1st, 2015, we gathered at my house to discuss Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman.  Here is a review from Amazon:

Drawing on decades of research in psychology that resulted in a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, Daniel Kahneman takes readers on an exploration of what influences thought example by example, sometimes with unlikely word pairs like "vomit and banana." System 1 and System 2, the fast and slow types of thinking, become characters that illustrate the psychology behind things we think we understand but really don't, such as intuition. Kahneman's transparent and careful treatment of his subject has the potential to change how we think, not just about thinking, but about how we live our lives. Thinking, Fast and Slow gives deep--and sometimes frightening--insight about what goes on inside our heads: the psychological basis for reactions, judgments, recognition, choices, conclusions, and much more.

This was a long one!  Not everyone finished.  It was a bit of a slog, but it has some great research and discussion.  For example, in one experiment, parole judges were more likely to grant parole when they were not hungry.

I found the book extremely fascinating and a little depressing; we think we make so many of our choices in life based on rational, sound, thinking... but often we don't realize the ways in which our environment and so many other things are helping form those choices.

Liz was Skyping from Texas and unfortunately the screen shot got cut off!

The Silver Star

On May 23rd, 2015, we met at the Crepevine in Palo Alto to talk about Liz's book choice, The Silver Star, by Jeannette Walls.

Jeannette Walls wrote one of our bookclub's favorite book choices from years past, her autobiography called the Glass Castle about her crazy childhood.

This was a novel, about two sisters, and their crazy mother.

Personally I thought it was just ok.  Maybe if I had not loved the Glass Castle so much I would have been more impressed, but I found the main character a little hard to believe.. the mother as well.  Yet in her autobiography, the parents did unbelievable things.  Go figure.