November 17, 2009

Our first meeting last night was fun and productive! Everyone is excited to get this party started. In attendance were Crissie King, Deb Bada, Lisa Wooden, and myself. Several others have expressed interest in joining us, and all are welcome! We discussed and decided on a couple of key things last night.

First on the agenda was choosing a name for the group. Deb came up with one that struck a chord with all of us as the PERFECT name. The Novelties! So when you hear news from Westwinds about The Novelties, that's us!

All future meetings will be held on the second Monday of every month from 6:30-8:30 pm. The next meeting will be December 7 at Biggby in Jackson. We decided to meet there one more time, then we can choose to rotate to different locations for future meetings.

We looked through a list of titles recommended by indies (independent bookstores) and decided on The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein, for our first read. The four of us decided to head on over to Best Books in The Crossing to pick up copies. They only had one, so we ordered more. They will be in tomorrow, so feel free to stop in and pick one up.

One last note... this is something that is important to me so I'm going to make it somewhat of a theme for the group... I believe if at all possible we should support independent bookstores. Indies are part of the personality of a community and we want them to survive these tough times, right? Best Books is the only indie new bookstore in Jackson that I know of, but there are others nearby: Schuler's in Lansing, Bestsellers in Mason, and Nicola's in Ann Arbor, just to name a few. Also, check out www.indiebound.org. There is a huge list of indie stores nationwide there. If you're a fan of ordering online (Amazon?) you can order books from indiebound online as well. (Just a suggestion.) So... no pressure... but if you can support indies, especially Michigan owned, that would be a very cool theme for our group. And Best Books in The Crossing will give us 15% off the price of a book that you purchase for our group. I will let them know ahead of time which selections we choose so they can get copies in stock for us right away.

Ok, I think that wraps up the kick-off of The Novelties!!! Please invite all of your book-loving, Jesus-loving friends and let's get reading!!!