Everyone in the audience is getting a post about OUR BOOK CLUB!

After school yesterday Caroline and I went to the library. And before you think I’m a wonderful mother for taking my child to the public library, I need to confess that when we pulled up in the car she said, “Oh yeah. I remember this place.”

And while we were looking at all the books and trying to make some selections, I remembered that I’d said I was going to announce my choice for our first (and maybe last) book club just like Oprah.

Everyone in the audience is getting a 2011 VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE!!!!

Except I’m not Oprah. So no one here is getting a 2011 Volkswagen Beetle unless you buy one for yourself.

However, the book club thing is legit.

After much debate and reading of summaries and reviews, I’ve decided on Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls.

It first called to me where most of my true loves do. The shelves at Target. The title drew me in and then I was almost completely sold when a partial review on the back cover billed it as “Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults”. And I do love me some Little House on the Prairie.

Here’s an excerpt from Publisher’s Weekly:

For the first 10 years of her life, Lily Casey Smith, the narrator of this true-life novel by her granddaughter, Walls, lived in a dirt dugout in west Texas. Walls, whose megaselling memoir, The Glass Castle, recalled her own upbringing, writes in what she recalls as Lily’s plainspoken voice, whose recital provides plenty of drama and suspense as she ricochets from one challenge to another. Having been educated in fits and starts because of her parents’ penury, Lily becomes a teacher at age 15 in a remote frontier town she reaches after a solo 28-day ride. Marriage to a bigamist almost saps her spirit, but later she weds a rancher with whom she shares two children and a strain of plucky resilience. (They sell bootleg liquor during Prohibition, hiding the bottles under a baby’s crib.) Lily is a spirited heroine, fiercely outspoken against hypocrisy and prejudice, a rodeo rider and fearless breaker of horses, and a ruthless poker player. Assailed by flash floods, tornados and droughts, Lily never gets far from hardscrabble drudgery in several states—New Mexico, Arizona, Illinois—but hers is one of those heartwarming stories about indomitable women that will always find an audience.

So there you have it. Here are the details if you’re not afraid to dive into a novel that features life in Texas before there was air-conditioning.

1. Go get a copy of the book or download it on your Kindle like all the cool kids are doing these days. Amazon has it on sale for $6.63 right now.

2. Read the book. I feel that this is probably self-explanatory but I have a need to over-explain everything.

3. On Thursday, February 17th, I’ll write a post with my thoughts on the book and some discussion questions. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to leave your thoughts, comments, insights, etc. in the comment section.

4. We can respond to each other there in a polite, civilized way that doesn’t include comments like “YOU’RE AN IDIOT IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK”.

5. If all goes well and we have a good time, I’ll take suggestions and pick another book on Thursday, February 17th and we can start all over again.

6. If it doesn’t go well then I will retire to my home in California, enjoy my rose garden, and start my own television network.

7. Or I will just continue to blog about things that don’t involve discussing books.

Y’all have a great day.