Oly Reads discussion

Okay, two dates have been discussed so far- March 28 and April 4 (both Saturdays). If we do it on the 28th, Jackie can't come. Does anyone else have other conflicts or preferred dates? Where would you all like to meet this time around? Should we go back to 6:30 meeting time, or do you all prefer to meet earlier? Discuss.
xo-
kelsey

April 4th sounds good to me. It's a little more time between meetings anyway. And, of course, I will want to hear all about Jackie's experiences.

Kate

I can do either date but I'll vote for April 4th

Okay, looks like April 4th seems to win. Any ideas for locations?

(Plus, most of us will have gotten paid by then...)

Agathafrye wrote: "Okay, looks like April 4th seems to win. Any ideas for locations?"

Some place with good fresh spring rolls would be nice...

Hmmm, fresh spring rolls. What I've noticed is that bar-restaurant hybrids seem to work better, because they don't really care if we lounge around the venue for hours. Maybe we can eat spring rolls first, Jackie, then head over to book club?

Nobody else has weighed in with any opinions, which means that either this isn't a good day for people, or they don't care or don't know where to meet. Allow me to make a list of possible locations...
-The Mark
-Swing Wine Bar (met here once before, and it was pretty fun)
-Fishbowl Brew Pub
-Water Street Cafe (slightly spendier)
-the Brotherhood (no food here, just cheap drinks)
-the Spar (met here once before, too)
-Sizizis (new coffee shop, pastries, coffee, tea, pretty damn small)

I'm not well versed on good places in Lacey or Tumwater, but let me know if you are. Other ideas for where to meet? April 4th not work for anyone? Talk to me!

Jon and I are still good with April 4th. My top meeting place choices are:
Fishbowl
Spar
Swing

But I'm not picky so any of your suggestions would do. :>)

I like the Fishbowl, but it's awfully noisy there, and packed on the weekends. The Spar and Swing were both good for conversation and food. The Mark might be cool, I've only been there once before.

I'm thinking... I doubt that any place that's mostly restaurant would be too thrilled to have a large group for a length of time on a Saturday night. On the other hand, maybe they are dying to have us rather than go out of business? I love the Fishbowl but it's too noisy. If the Spar worked well last time, we could give it another try. The Mark is cool but probably spendy. By the way, springrolls: I've only been to the Thai Garden (over on the westside) once but it seemed pretty big and they did have spring rolls.

Oh, yeah, Thai Garden moved across from Joann's, didn't it. Any good?

Well, it was at least edible. I was there for lunch only but did have their spring rolls. They were pretty good.

I was thinking about it, the place to meet, and have been to so few places around town that I'd like to leave the destination discussion for this one up to others. Eventually, maybe May?, I would like to host it.

Thanks, Kate! I'll leave this to fester for a couple more days, and make a decision if nobody else speaks up.

Whew - back from vacation and all kinds of stuffs happened! Ok, April 4th. That's fine with me.
I'm afraid I'm unhelpful on the location discussion - I love and would be up for any or all locations. I do have opinions on the quality of spring rolls, however none of my favorites would be conducive to our group. Tell me where, I'll be there! :)

I vote for April 4; as for venue the only ones I know are the Spar and Swing. Like Kate, I leave that decision up to the rest of the gang. I love the idea of the Fishbowl, if only for the name!

(I'm also up for a possibly separate Search for the Elusive Olympian Spring Roll sometime. The Tamarind Tree in Seattle serves these amazing salad rolls that are just rice paper, romaine, some yummy crunchy tofu, shrimp, mint, peanuts, and bits of shredded carrot. They're not fried and they come with a tasty dipping sauce. I fantasize about these damn rolls, but Seattle is kind of a long way to go just to get my fix, y'know? If I could find a local version I'd be one happy gal....)

Angel's Thai has the best fresh spring rolls that I have had locally. They are totally delish. The ones at the Thai place whose name I forget, right near the downtown fountain, are pretty good too. They win for the best egg roll noodle salad, in my book.

Nom nom nom!
Thanks for the recommendation :)

I just realized that I am double booked for the 4th and the other event (belly dance performance at Evergreen) will take precedence. Sorry, I'm going to miss book group.

I'll tell you that I was going to share "The Lost City of Z" which I read cover to cover and enjoyed almost all of it. I recommend it. Well written and interesting.

We'll report back for you, Kate- have fun at your belly dancing performance! I'm going to go with the Mark for our next meeting- it's happy hour there from 5-7pm daily (going to have to double check on Saturdays). I'm going to go with 6:30 again- if anyone wants a different time, let me know. Okay? Okay!

Hi guys,
We'll be in Sequim on 4/4 but will hopefully meet up w/ you next time.

btw - I personally think pubs and coffee shops are the best venue for book groups (starting a little earlier, like 4:30) with a target time for ending, say 6:00. Then if folks wanna go eat a real dinner, so be it.

I agree that starting earlier would be great, but I'm usually working Saturdays until 5, as are some of the other folks who attend, which is why I put it a little later usually to give the Saturday workers a moment to regroup before getting into social mode. We can revisit days of the week if anyone wants to switch things up a bit next time? Fridays? Sundays? Or, do you all like the Saturday nights? I'm cool with any of those options.

Also, Sequim? Pourquoi?

I knew when I wrote that (starting earlier) you'd call me on it ;-) I just figured it could be a way to beat the big Sat pm crowds and one or two of us might be okay with being a tad late. But I get yer point.

Sequim = birthday brunch for JD's pop.

I'd be happier with a different day, as I have a standing writer's group meeting on Saturdays at 5:30, so I don't often get to go to book club anymore. I'd prefer Fridays. But if that doesn't work for anybody else, then I'll just have to skip out on the writers every month or so and visit you guys on the sly. :>

Okay, book club report. We met at the Mark, and of course I didn't make reservations so they were nervous about serving us dinner and tried to foist their tapas on us as an alternative. Once they realized that our group was going to be pretty small, they agreed to serve a few of us dinner. How kind of them. They ended up being fine, so I shouldn't be snarky. I suppose I probably should have told them we were coming. As it was a GORGEOUS day out, the group was small and hardcore- there were seven of us total.

Patty started us out with reading a few excerpts from The Sun magazine that left me verklempt. Once again, I marveled at the variety of everybody's selections. This is really the thing that I like the most about this book group format- I always learn about new authors that I never would have known about otherwise. I think it's making me read a much wider variety of books, so thanks y'all.

The list: I've included books that were mentioned in an unofficial capacity, as well, because I didn't want to skip anything. There were also a couple of movies mentioned which I'll add in for the hell of it. Everything I could find was added to the Oly Reads Bookshelf, which is really starting to be an impressive list (181 books!). If you want to know what some folks in Olympia are reading, that's a good spot to check.
* The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjian
* A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg
* The Sun magazine
* Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl
* Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table by Ruth Reichl
* Freddie and Me: a Coming-of-Age (Bohemian) Rhapsody by Mike Dawson
* The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats Sell Out by Adam Koford
* True Grit by Charles Portis
* the East Village Inky zine by Ayun Halliday
* No Touch Monkey! and Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late by Ayun Halliday
* The Big Rumpus by Ayun Halliday
* Alice's Tulips by Sandra Dallas
* Undone (Outcast Season, book 1) by Rachel Caine
* Pitch Black by Youme Landowne and Anthony Horton
* Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting
* The Big Splash by Jack D. Ferraiolo
* The Remarkable & Very True Story of Lucy and Snowcap by H.M. Bouwman
* The Compleat Dying Earth by Jack Vance
* The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance
* Cugel's Saga by Jack Vance
* Identical Strangers: a Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein (I can't remember the context for this one, but I wrote it down... anyone remember? Is this the right book?)
* Movies: The Great Race, Let the Right One In, Brick

Drinks consumed: Midori Sour, Sweet, Man Trouble, Exotica, Mojito, something with a stick of sugarcane in it (help John!), and others that I was too liquored up to recall. There was some discussion of the Beatles, Huey Lewis and the News, and Journey in there somewhere, as well. Note to anyone who attended and drank less than me (or didn't, for that matter)- please add to this report if you feel so inspired.

-Respectfully submitted by Kelsey

Okay, I just realized I forgot to attribute stuff... here's the list again with the name of the person who talked about it.
* The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjian (Kelsey)
* A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg (Kelsey)
* The Sun magazine (Patty)
* Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl (Patty)
* Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table by Ruth Reichl (Patty)
* Freddie and Me: a Coming-of-Age (Bohemian) Rhapsody by Mike Dawson (John)
* The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats Sell Out by Adam Koford (John)
* True Grit by Charles Portis (Meghan)
* the East Village Inky zine by Ayun Halliday (Meghan)
* No Touch Monkey! and Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late by Ayun Halliday (Meghan)
* The Big Rumpus by Ayun Halliday (Meghan)
* Alice's Tulips by Sandra Dallas (Alex)
* Undone (Outcast Season, book 1) by Rachel Caine (Alex)
* Pitch Black by Youme Landowne and Anthony Horton (Raina)
* Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting (Patty)
* The Big Splash by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Raina)
* The Remarkable & Very True Story of Lucy and Snowcap by H.M. Bouwman (Raina)
* The Compleat Dying Earth by Jack Vance (Bill)
* The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance (Bill)
* Cugel's Saga by Jack Vance (Bill)
* Identical Strangers: a Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein (I can't remember the context for this one, but I wrote it down... anyone remember? Is this the right book?)

Sorry I missed. I intended to add "1984" to the list by George Orwell. Our meeting was on April 4, 2009 and how perfect that the opening of the story is set on April 4, 1984. Exactly 25 years ago to the day. It's also the 60th anniversary year of the publishing of the book in 1949. Oh well, I know everyone had a good time. Looking forward to making the next meeting.
- Jon