It came to pass that my friend approached me and said she would like to read more but never knows which book to read next or how even to chose the book. She asked, since I am always reading, if I would be interested in starting a book group. I was. Other women were invited into our book group. And now we are seven.
Our first meeting everyone brought delicious food to eat and we ate as we discussed our book. Now food is brought to each meeting, the more book relevant the food the better. However, my pickled herring were perfect for Life of Pi but unappreciated by the group, I was the only one who ate them. From our delight of eating good food while talking about good books came our name: THE HUNGER DAMES.
We pick a book no one has read. This takes out all the great books we have read and love and want to share - our friends will have to read those on their own time. It also introduces an element of risk that none of us might like the book since we are picking the book based on reviews. However, all of us will be on equal footing during discussion and all of our book libraries will grow. After a month we reconvene and discuss what we have read, what we thought, share insights, ask questions, and eat.
The Hunger Dames are all having a splendid time.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (meeting on 9/25/2012)

We all loved this book. It is just beautiful. The two adult magicians, in a competition they don't understand, falling in love, manipulated by their parents/grandparents, and all taking place in the Night Circus that everyone loves.
We tried to bring circus like food and had hot cocoa.
This book was picked because I saw it in all the stores, read the reviews in EW, and heard some other people reading it. And the title is brilliant.

My Name is Memory by Ann-Brashares (meeting on 10/30/2012)

Neat book, interesting ideas were brought forth in it. Some fun twist.
This was picked because it was written by the author of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - we did not know this was book 1 of a trilogy that has not been finished. The ending is a cliff hanger.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson (meeting on 11/27/2012)

Beautiful book. Charming. Lovely. Enough to make you uneasy for a few minutes but then smooths everything out again. A warm fuzzy book for sitting beside a nice fire with cup of coffee and a quilt tuck around on a rainy day.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel (meeting on 1/8/2013)

Loved it. There was a tiger in a boat (maybe). I picked it because I saw the movie previews with a tiger in a boat. Saw the movie, read the book with the Hunger Dames, then all of the Hunger Dames and myself went to see the movie - the movie after reading the book had a different slant then before reading the book.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl (meeting on 2/5/2013)

Fun. Some interesting twist.
This was picked because there was a movie coming out and we wanted to read the book before seeing the movie.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, & Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (meeting on 3/12/2013)

Not a nice book. Hard, mean, scary. It is a biography so there is no internal dialogue, "Just the facts, ma'am," and that was hard to get use to. And then the troubles and hardships the main character suffers. But the payoff in the end is worth all the heartache in reading up to it. 

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly (meeting on 4/2013)

Fun twisted trip along the path and through the mind of a boy growing to be a man, and all the demented twist on fairy tales he meets along the way.



The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown (meeting on 5/21/13)

Just finished this - fun book. 3 sisters and their reconciliation of themselves and who they are and who their sisters are set in the backdrop of a small town and a father who is a Shakespeare aficionado.

I don't know what our next book is going to be.