Bookish Brunettes

That is the name of the weeklong Literary Festival starting on Tuesday of this week at Our Lady of the Lake University. Headlining this series will be Sandra Cisneros, former literature director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, TX and resident of the infamous "purple house" on Guenther Street. As you may recall, at our last book club we discussed Cisnero's House on Mango Street as a future book selection. Here is an excellent opportunity to participate in an "intimate conversation" with Ms. Cisneros and other authors throughout the week. Details of the festival can be found here.

A couple of the programs, including Tuesday's "An Evening with Sandra," Thursday's "Confessions: A call for Justice" with Demetria Martinez reading from her book Confessions of a Berlitz-Tape Chicana and Friday's "La Comida Tells the Story: A Woman's Workshop About Writing, Eating and Loving" and "Beyond Borders: Coover and Santos" featuring authors Robert Coover and John Phillip Santos sound too good to miss. I'm willing to get into work at the crack of dawn just for the chance to attend these events. Anyone interested in joining me is more than welcome to come along (and remind me it's time to leave work)!

Posted by at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments

Way to go Bijal!

That italian berry gelato was like a trapeeze act on the toungue (and by that, I mean it was divine). I used to be a Brindle's regular until low carb became the fad. I may be a re-convert now. (On another note: Did you know Brindle's made the San Antonio Frommer's Guide?) Then there was the cheese and wine... Everything at last night's book club gathering went down smoothly. We're hoping you can post the delectable details in a future post.

What a turn out! We were a fun and garrulous group. The book was a hit...though we couldn't quite decide if we'd recommend the book to someone else. The verdict: it depends on who that other person is. I think we were all very vocal about the stifling conditions under which women lived and the choices they were given: marriage or convent. Under those circumstances, even happy endings aren't as happy as women of our day and age would like them to be. Still, even with all our freedom and independence, I can't imagine any one of us running out for a serpent tatoo leading the way to our nether regions. Though, if I had to pick the Brunette most likely to obtain said decoration, I would pick...uhm, Danni. She's young and spirited. (and she's the most likely to notice this post and comment back) Who would you pick?



We took care of a lot of business last night. The book for May will be The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. The May book club will be hosted by Rebecca P. We also have hosts for June (Debbie & Vivian) and July (Lulu). The club is shaping up!

Posted by at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

What a remarkable book club gathering we had last night!

Too bad there was the mystery of the missing posts that left us all scratching our heads and wondering whether the blog was as easy to use as I made it out to be. Well--just call me Britney: Oops! Apparently, I'm not notified of some comments. Those go through some secondary screening process (let's blame homeland security) and have to be manually accepted by me. What are you guys doing? In the future, avoid using words like: terror, democratic, quail hunting and expunge--and posts should go straight through. Especially, if I remember to check in on the "moderate comments" queue. I think commenting as "anonymous" rather than "other" puts you directly online. I could be wrong. Of course, the easiest thing would be to accept my invitation, pick a username and logon to make comments.

To make a long story short: I found the five lost comments. Thanks for making them. As you heard last night--we're all looking forward to more comments and more posts. So, start posting and get reading!

Posted by at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments