Book Clubs

Jennifer talks about presenting to a book club...

Last night, I attended a book club as the guest author. A friend of my mom’s heard that I’d given a talk to a Jewish women’s group about my books and wanted me to come to her book club and give the same talk.

I spoke with her ahead of time and suggested she read The Seduction of Esther, which was my newest book at the time, but she said she wanted the group to read A Heart of Little Faith.

I was a little nervous about that because the book club is made up of a bunch of teachers, and as my first book, it has things in it I wish I could fix, but she really wanted to read it, so I said, “Of course.” Since that book is being re-released, I made sure they knew to buy it early.

Armed with the speech I thought they wanted me to give, postcards and a pen, I went over and met a lovely bunch of women who have been meeting as a book club once a month for 37 YEARS!

They asked me a ton of questions, everything from my writing process to what I liked best or least about the book to what I read. It was a great experience. They didn’t have me make my speech, which is good because I don’t think a speech works in a book-club environment. They also served a ton of food, which is always nice, especially for an author who puts a lot of food in her books!

I still have a hard time imagining my books as a book club selection—they don’t have questions in the back and they are definitely predictable (the happily ever after, and all), although several of them thought I was going to go in one direction when I went in a completely different one—but this is my second book club discussion, so I’m getting used to it. I think the appeal is being able to meet with the author.