What I'll Miss Installment #8

Seriously, I will miss some more things about Dubai, and I have pictures to prove it! However, I only feel motivated to write while I am at work laboring hard to not have to do any work. (All the photos are at home.) While I am at home, I only feel motivated to read. (Still working on What the Dog Saw, but have added Rudyard Kipling's Kim to the mix along with three Elizabeth Gaskell novels.) When did I become such a bookworm? No worries, I like the development.

Part of this newly discovered literary feast comes from the fact that I am tired of television. The other, and larger part, rests solely on the shoulders of a book group I joined with some ladies from church. I like this book group and I am going to miss it.

Instead of being assigned a book to read, we all bring a couple of books, say why we like them, and then we choose what we are individually going to read from the other offerings. This is a pretty perfect plan. You get to choose the book you want to read instead having to submit to the will of someone who likely has differing tastes...and well, you know where this leads: illiteracy. Since the group is a collection of interests and personalities, I get to read things that I probably wouldn't have chosen and/or found, like Girls of Riyadh or the aforementioned Michael Gladwell book. (However I am getting a little tired of books about the Middle East.)
I want to look cool to the other ladies, so I try to choose semi-smart novels and bring books by obscure authors.. (Like when I lived in New York, and chose intelligent-looking novels to read on the subway. I never said I wasn't shallow.)

The last thing that I am going to miss about book group is, of course, the participants. I wish this group existed when I first arrived because I have met a lot of fun people through it. It has given me at least one more thing per month to look forward to. And it has opened the door for me to get invited to other social gatherings like baby and bridal showers.

I may just have to start my own once I get to Spokane. Want to join?