Dans ses mots

Normally, I'd send a note to GBC C@r0le King (not the singer) to ask her permission to re-quote but I've had a glass of reading water and found her description of the last GBC Meet impossible to resist.  Names have been edited for privacy but otherwise the text is hers...beautiful and leaving me homesick for book club and Paris in a short dress and high heels:

Edith Piaf was singing as we entered. The table was already laid, a pile of fresh spinach on each place, and then an array of dishes kept appearing — quartered tomatoes, sliced boiled eggs, goat cheese, tuna, potatoes and so much more — to be combined into a delicious, divine Nicoise. The wine flowed freely. That E--, she sure knows how to set the scene, doesn’t she?

And so began our evening "inside a pearl," picking over Edmund White’s gossipy memoir of his years in Paris. Some liked it; others found his descriptions a bit much, as in TMI (too much information!). But it was a lively discussion over many glasses of wine. (K-- and I thank you, M--, for bring the German with you. We’d like to meet that one again!)

And you know how we are, we even took the conversation on a tangent or two (or 3 or 4). We missed those of you who couldn’t make it and look forward to seeing you next month. Is this when we are finally discussing The Goldfinch? Get ready for a really good discussion, folks. I made notes (complete with page numbers on the back of the VISA bill envelope) and I know many of you have done the same, so it should be a rousing evening of opinions, insights, confessions and book-loving nerdiness as only the GBC can bring!

So let me end with dessert since E-- sent us on our way with such sweet remembrances…

Picture a decadent flourless chocolate torte. With your choice (try them all!) of fragrant strawberries, vanilla ice cream, juicy tart cherries and blueberries. Am I remembering this right, fellow bookies?* Did I miss anything? It was a lovely, lovely evening… a trip courtesy of the book and our generous, thoughtful hostess.

Thank you, E--, for filling our souls.

*This is how I think of us. Sort of like Trekkies, but we don’t do costumes. (Except, of course, when the occasion calls for Black Tie and the accessories are just too tempting to resist.)