#2306 book club and basketball

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I was having a book club meeting and that we were going to the Jazz game. The Jazz fandom and book club worlds met at the game and it was kind of magical. Let me tell you about it.

So there I was on Twitter with the rest of #Ekpesbookclub discussing The Haunting of Hill House. Some people, people much more cerebral than I am, were telling those of us who didn't love the book (like me) about the brilliance of Shirley Jackson's writing. They were explaining Eleanor's descent into madness and how the house itself was a character. While I appreciate their comments and the discussion did give me more to think about, I still didn't care for the book. We all agreed that books affect and touch people in different ways and we all still appreciate each other's perspectives. It's a  friendly group. It's kind of amazing how you can develop a bit of a relationship with the people in the group even if you haven't met them in person. Some of the people I have been fortunate to meet through the Author Talk series that Ekpe hosted while he was here, but it has been awhile since we had one of those meet-ups.

As it was a Jazz game night, a few people mentioned that they were going to the game so they had to leave early to have dinner or whatever. I tweeted that I would be going to the game too and that it would be fun to meet up at half-time and maybe take a group photo that we could post on Twitter and tag Ekpe and the book club. To my surprise and delight, four people agreed (all season ticket holders, lucky dogs!) and we did meet and take a photo!

I have actually met all of these people before, so that was cool. From left to right: Bentley, Blair, me, Melanie and Stacy. We are all doing the peace sign because Ekpe almost always uses the peace sign emoji on his tweets. We took a few minutes to talk about our favorite books we read with the club this year and why. Bentley's favorite was a book we actually read last year, Just Mercy. He is an attorney, and I remember that he had a lot of opinions about the book and the justice system. Blair loved the book Belonging, which was the book about the German woman finding out that her grandfather was a Nazi. Melanie loved The House of Salt and Sorrows (she says she has read it like five times!) and Stacy liked Becoming. My favorite was The Nickel Boys. It's funny that each of our favorites were books we recommended to the club. LOL

I started reading with the book club last year in April, so 2019 was my first full year. We have read some great books and some meh books. The beauty is that books I might consider great others would consider meh and vice versa. That's the beauty of it though, isn't it. I can say with certainty that there were books we read that wouldn't have come up on my reading radar, so I'm grateful to the club to have expanded my reading horizons.

Here's a pic of most of the books we read this year:

There are five books that are not in this pile. I lent them to MT and I didn't bother to put them back in my finished pile. Those books are: Becoming, Where the Crawdads Sing, Educated, and The Guardians. We also read The Autobiography of Malcom X which I have on my Kindle.  Three of the books in the pile are signed by the authors from when I met them during Author Talks: Heavy, The Courage to Be You, and The Rent Collector. Gail Miller just wrote her name in the book, but the other two have messages to me. SQUEEE!

As for the Jazz game itself, that was fun too. The Portland Trailblazers were in town. One of their superstar players, Damian Lillard, played his college ball in Ogden at Weber State, so he always gets a lot of love when he plays in Utah. He's very good. 

The Jazz had a big lead for most of the game, but watched it get whittled away so that at points in the fourth quarter the Blazers were within one to three points. The Jazz dug deep and prevailed and there was much joy in the Viv.

Here's a photo I took of T and his friend Spudz, aided in lighting by Emmy award-winning videographer Darren Bailey:

Have a great weekend! More words tomorrow!