Saturday Night Free Verse

I feel like a giddy kid with a new toy.

I just spent the highlight of my week talking about books and drinking tea and eating pad thai with three other women, some of whom I had only met this evening, and LOVING every single minute of it.

Just how infatuated am I with book club? Glad you asked...


At our first book club meeting in February, I showed up with a list of potential names for our book club that I had been brainstorming and recording on my library book receipt during the time between when I got in bed and when I fell asleep each night. Book club was all I could think about every night before bed for at least a month straight. From those hours of book club anticipation, Saturday Night Free Verse was birthed.

I also brought along three potential reads for March so we could pick out the next book at our meeting, just in case there wasn't a book picked out yet. (There wasn't). My suggestion: The Time Traveler's Wife. (One of my favorites!).

This month was my turn, along with choosing the read, to host the meeting for Saturday Night Free Verse. I got to pick the meal and prepare the discussion questions. Fantastic! It's like getting to plan a lesson, but for a small group instead of an entire class, and for people who have not only read the book, but who enjoy talking about the book too! It's an English teacher's dream come true.


In addition to the meal of spring rolls, pad thai, sticky rice, hot tea, and bananas in coconut milk (in honor of Henry and Clare's first date at Beau Thai, for those of you who have read TTW), I pulled out the china that Adelaide gave me as a wedding shower gift. It was like playing tea party, only with real food and real china (oh, and not to mention the place mats and cloth napkins that were Christmas gifts from my sisters this year). Plus, we were all so excited to talk about the book that we started the discussion during dinner.

When I was in college, I had this vision of sitting around for the rest of my life discussing literature with high school kids.


If only school looked like book club, my dream would be realized....