This summer while I was off on my half summer break ;) I felt a really calling to get more involved at church and meet new people. I was also thinking about what on earth I'm going to do when my little people are gone:
(Left at Belmont Mansion)
As most of you know, I love books and people and coffee and this book club over the years has filled my cup every month with joy and laughter, and even tears when our beloved Terezia passed away unexpectedly. Let me tell you a little history and how we got where we are today.
Back while Katie was not even in school yet (2007?2008?) a book club was started through Thompsons Station Church and called the Koinonia Book Club, which would focus on reading only Christian Fiction books. There were probably about 10-15 ladies in it and we met during the day once a month at someone's house for a good while. Well, then many of the ladies got jobs so the morning book club fell apart. In the mean time, a night group had started with working ladies. After taking a break, I decided I couldn't stand to be away and I decided Roger could handle the kids one night, so I decided to start going to the night book club. That one met at a variety of coffee shops. Over time, more people came and went and we ended up at BooksaMillion on Thursday nights where we would drink coffee and tea in Joe Muggs Cafe, discuss whatever book we read that month (for about 15-20 mins!) and catch up in each other's lives. Then we would stroll back to the Christian Fiction section (when it had two whole rows!) and look for books that might have enough copies for all of us to buy. We would all read the summaries of a few of them, then someone would pick one.
Time marched on, as they say, and our numbers again shrunk and grew as new people joined, then some dropped out due to life situations. Before the pandemic hit, most of us had Kindles or Nooks and the physical book choice was not as big of a deal, so we started branching out to other places, which eventually led to meeting for dinner instead of just coffee sometimes. And sometimes we would do fun stuff, like meet local authors when they had book signings or visit Belmont Mansion after reading books about it.
These days there are only about four or five of us, and although we are pretty tight, we'd love to have more ladies come join us! This is not a stuffy, literature heavy club, it's more about sharing our love of reading, of God & Jesus, what He is doing in our lives, etc. I have developed a "picker schedule" where there is a designated person who picks for the month, along with a suggested genre, but it could be anything that person wants. We have read many common Christian authors, like Karen Kingsbury, Tamara Alexander, Melody Carlson, Tracie Peterson, Terri Blackstock, etc. I have tried to go back and make a list of all the books we have read, but it is well over 200! (If you go back through my blog here, pretty much most posts from 2013 on are strictly the books I have read, several from book club)
So, are you interested in joining us?
You do not have to:
Our next meeting is THIS Thursday, July 21, at the Panera in Spring Hill by the Crossings. We will meet at 6 for dinner, etc and probably stay til about 8. This past month the book was Blackberry Summer by Raeann Thayne, but quite honestly I did not read it this month. And guess what! I'M STILL COMING!!
The book for next month (date undecided as of yet) is If I Run by Terri Blackstock. Please feel free to email me, text me, call me, message me, whatever and let me know if you are interested. It may be too late to come this week, but you could always pick up another month. We typically meet every third Thursday, but in August I will be moving my baby girl to college that day so we will choose another week.
Not sure what my next read will be, but I've started back to school/work so it's probably going to slow down!
Keep reading!
O:)
Melissa
