You despair, you wring your hands, you fret.  Why is it that your book club is not perfect? The rounds of who did what to whom go through your mind in an endless loop.  And yet, there are many reasons to love your fellow book club mates.

• Amid the iPads and Kindles, someone brings in a hardcover copy of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume 1, 1907-1922.  It becomes an object of desire as everyone admires its impeccable published quality, its photo folio which are at once iconic and intimate. Reevaluation of flawed 20th century writers and a review of slang circa 1920, a weirdly compelling mix of French and Jazz Age expressions that are probably blue but also a little innocent ensues. 
• Did you know where Dorothy Parker's remains have been interred?  The Memorial Garden at the Baltimore headquarters of the NAACP, of course.  http://www.dorothyparker.com/dot33.htm.
• Making plans: for Helen Schulman's This Beautiful Life, the holiday party with the Swedish Christmas theme and the idea that you will see everyone next month and it will be just as inspiring as last night.