Yesterday was my monthly book discussion. Recently a new policy was instituted that the leading of the group is to rotate among members, instead of the librarian always at the helm. The loose rule  is that whomever suggested the book, leads that particular discussion. Since I had suggested the Elizabeth George mystery for this month, it was my turn. Now I'm not new to leading book discussions, in the Great Books group I belonged to, it was mandatory that each person lead 2 meetings a year & it was works of literature, twice a month. The meetings lasted almost 2 hours & members included university professors & shrinks, so there was a lot of pressure. An hour chatting up a murder mystery looked like a piece of cake compared to that.

    I always take a small notebook with questions & comments with me anyways and can usually think of 5 or 6 easily. Naturally, this month I had a lot of trouble coming up with questions, but eventually thought of 7 or 8. The official website www.ElizabethGeorgeOnline.com  provided oodles of background info(such as the astonishing fact that the author, who sets all of her books in England, has spent her entire life in California). There's even photos that she used to imagine settings for places in her novels. Learning where people get inspiration has always fascinated me.

   There was a nice turn out & the group was very supportive, the discussion flowed quite well & there weren't any uncomfortable silences. The themes of the book was love and loyalty, so we covered those as well as analysing various characters. Things became quite poignant when people began discussing grief & sharing personal accounts. Marlowe's quote "The only sin is ignorance" which is cited in the book, led to the liveliest part of the meeting as we delved into philosophy & current events. When the meeting was over, they embarrassed me by applauding, but at least the whole thing wasn't a disaster. I won't be in the spotlight again till later in the summer, so I can just relax again.