New Feature: Friday Flashback

Since alliterative titles are all the rage in blogging, I'm moving the memes to Mondays.

The last time I posted about our history was in February, when I posted our book selections from 2001. In 2001 we had just experienced an influx of new members and really started to get our routine down. Whereas in our first few years, our meetings would often get canceled or postponed, meetings got regular and were generally well attended after 2001. As Irina McGovern would attest, with regularity comes the need to spice things up a bit! (Sorry, couldn't resist the reference to our current book.) In 2001 we did our first mystery month in which:

• we select a mystery novel for the month's book
• it must be a "whodunit" type novel that can be figured out, rather than a basic suspense novel
• one member reads the entire book and tells everyone where to stop reading
• we come to the meeting and try to figure out who, why, how etc by asking only yes/no questions
  

It has become our favorite tradition. This is always one of the best meetings of the year. When we first started doing it, Katie had to leave early because she did not want to know who the murderer was before finishing the book. One year we paired mystery foods with the mystery selection, bringing filled foods with mysterious ingredients. This was inspired by the famous book group Mostly we Eat. (Actually I think the mystery month idea might have been inspired by Mostly we Eat as well.)

Our mystery month selections are listed below. Which was your favorite?

2001: Green for Danger by Christianna Brand
2002: Death of an Expert Witness by P.D. James
2003: For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George
2004: The Missing Piece by Antoine Bello
2005: Death Comes as Epiphany by Sharan Newman
2006: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
2007: Dead Famous by Ben Elton
2008: The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard