John, Anne, Jane, and Michael

Hearty thanks to Marianne and her book club for hosting me and Everliving last night. Loved the questions, the conversation, and the "turtle fondue" of chocolate, caramel and pecans!

For those of you always on the lookout for new book club best practices, Marianne's group copies discussion questions (from the book or online), cuts them out, puts them in a bowl, and has everyone draw one. Kinda fun! But even funner was the meeting they had for Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, where everyone was assigned a character to dress up as. Brilliant idea, and one I'll suggest to my own book club when we meet tonight. We are tackling Watership Down soon, after all, and what better revenge for me to take than to make everyone dress up as talking rabbits?

Of course, my favorite discussion question, as I've mentioned before, is to have the readers "cast" the book. Marianne's group gets points for originality because they picked John Corbett (thank you, IMDB) for Ben

Hmm...I can picture it.

and Anne Hathaway for Daphne.

Especially perfect for a musical version of EVERLIVING

 Lovely! I'll have to check out this John Corbett, but I do think Anne Hathaway would be every bit as haunting a Daphne as another frequent choice, Emily Blunt.

It was great to revisit Everliving for another reason because I've been buried in Jane Austen lately, prepping for a "Jane Austen book club" a friend and I auctioned off for Eastside Academy and also my upcoming side session for the Seattle University Search for Meaning Book Festival. Check out my Jane slide:

Exciting stuff. Had to figure out how to flip Jane's pic in Microsoft Paint because I wanted her facing inward to the presentation like she actually wanted to be there.

And finally I promised you a Michael. One of the gals at the book club last night was married to a band promoter who had done stints working in a record store and playing in a band. Perfect segue to Mr. Chabon's new novel Telegraph Avenue, which he'll be talking about at the Search for Meaning keynote.

Do hope you can join us on Saturday, March 9! I've got an early bird session at 9:00-9:45, which I much prefer to the slot I had last time, post keynote, after everyone has heard the Big Star and headed off to find lunch. They do require you print tickets at home, and big Michael is supposedly already "Sold Out," but they encourage us to come anyhow, given the high proportion of flake-hood in our culture. Hope to see you!