"Paul Di Filippo - Book Clubbed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

“I didn’t think so,” continued Tina. “That’s why I went looking for a
reference work to help us get started. Here’s what I found.”

She dug a book out of her knitting bag and passed it around.

Diana Loevy’s The Book Club Companion.

The Bible of our doom.

We all clustered around the book, studying its light-hearted,
good-natured, informative pages that taught us such clever tricks as how to
entertain (and drink!) thematically. Excitement surged, and pretty soon we
had concluded our first meeting by vowing to pattern ourselves completely
along the lines of Loevy’s guide.

“This will be so much fun!” exclaimed Donna Starzl. “No dry literary
discussions! More like a costume party or an amateur theatrical event or a
support group every week!”

“But centered around a book,” Beth Ostrander politely reminded us.

“Of course,” said Tina. “We just have to choose our first title.”

Well, none of us wanted to venture right off the bat into the confusing
domain of brand-new books, so in the end we opted for a classic: James
M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice.

“And we can watch the movie afterwards too!” shouted out Lena
Bolland. Lena had had three Bloody Marys to everyone else’s two. “That
John Garfield was so hot!”

“John Garfield?” I said. “I thought that was Jack Nicholson....”

“You’re both right,” said Beth. “There were two versions. But no
movie-watching till you’ve read the actual book.”

“And don’t forget,” Tina chirped in, “we’re doing the whole discussion
Loevy-style!”

The next week we reconvened, and everyone had gone
enthusiastically full out, totally getting into the spirit of the Loevy-style book
club.

All the girls were dressed up in period clothing, Depression-era duds
they had dug out of attics. Some came in “drag,” as men with false
mustaches. A few had borrowed vintage cars like the ones we saw in the
annual Elks parade.

Inside, we each got handed a drink of “bathtub gin.” Snacks were Ritz
crackers and Spam and Velveeta.