Book Club Report

My book club got together Wednesday night.  Typically we meet at the local bar for micro-brews, but this month, we met at the house of our of the people in our group for high tea.  We had done the same last year once--a couple of the guys bid on the event in a charity auction.  So our drink of choice (for the first part of the evening) was oolong tea, though the other teas were good as well.

Our book was Dead Souls by Ian Rankin.  I compared it a few times to an extended episode of Law & Order, and like that it was entertaining, sometimes very exciting, but not especially deep.  Even as little as I've read of crime fiction, this seemed to fit all the expectations I had of that genre (perhaps too much so?).  We managed to have a good discussion about it.  One of the guys in our group is from Edinburgh, so much of the discussion related as much to different aspects of the city as to the book itself.

Afterward, two of the guys in our group, both connoisseurs of single-malt whisky, brought out the wide range of varieties to educate us on what to expect and what to know.  I skipped the Glenfiddich (which they called the Budweiser of single malts), but most of the ones I tried were good.  There was a McAllen, a Scapa, and two of the more briney whiskies (plus another one or two that I didn't get a chance to taste).  The Laphroaig was definitely my favorite.

Our next book is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.