Adventures in Reading

This month's book club meeting was a field trip.  Woot!

As many of you know, yours truly stalks authors.  I show up at their events acting like a giddy fan girl hoping some of their writing brilliance will rub off.  So when I found out one of our book club authors would be in the area, I decided to see if anyone else was interested in becoming a crazed fan.  Lucky for me, the Brewed Crew is always up for a good book adventure. ^_^

We headed to the Dallas Museum of Art to hear Paula McLain speak on her latest book, The Paris Wife.  On the way over, we held our normal discussion for the current book B.B.U.S.A. by Lessil & Jacqueline Richards

B.B.U.S.A. is a crime/suspense novel that most of the Brewed Crew found interesting.  And for the bargain price of only $2.99 via Kindle it was entertaining enough to warrant the spend.  The one critique that came up over and over though was the fact the book was written by two people.  Not only were their styles different, the continuity of the story was impacted by the back and forth writing.  This made parts of the book "hard to believe".  Not in a fantastical way, mind you; more in a that just doesn't add up way.  It was deemed an OK read especially considering the cost.

Once in Dallas, we hit a food truck for some street tacos, nearly had a food fail by flipping our table over (think the clumsy thing must be wearing off on folks!), and became swallowed in the DMA crowd.  There was a 20's art exhibit going on which fit The Paris Wife theme to a tee.  <It's like they planned it or something o.O>  We lucked out and ended up with seats in the actual auditorium instead of the overflow room we had originally booked.  And the only thing better would have been finding a luck dragon because Ms. McLain was AMAZING.

She was funny and endearing, raw and honest; a truly beautiful speaker.  She spoke about her trials as a fledgling writer, moving from poetry to "full sentences".  And she spoke about her success with The Paris Wife, not for hitting it big but for resonating with readers and conveying her characters in such an excellent way that even family members of the actual characters had an enjoyable reading experience.  To her, that was the reward of this book - bringing Hadley to life and giving her a voice.  Her next project had me clapping with excitement - a novel on Marie Currie!  Yeah, that's right - a story with one of my favorite scientific heroines. 

The night was a success; everyone had a wonderful time and we chatted about the lecture the entire ride home.  I hope we can find more events like this to attend as a group.  It was great to see my friends become enamored with an author.  It means I'm not the only crazy one in the group. ^_^