Okay, I know, I’ve been slackin’ lately. But it’s been Spring Break! What do you expect!?

I’ve decided to maintain our blog-bookclub here on this blog instead of creating a whole new one. So, if you wish to participate in our club, just check back here and click on the category titles as seen above. Please make comments often if you’re reading the book(s) on our list!

And here’s the cool part…we’re not going to have deadlines for the books we’re reading. At least, we’ll try not to at first. Basically, it will work like this:
I’ll compile a list of books that we’ll read in order (so far there are two books on the list!) and then I’ll put up a post about each book with a synopsis. When you’re reading it, or finished reading it, once read it or whatnot, just post a comment to the appropriate post to begin our discussions. We’ll see how that works for a while. Please keep in mind…this is OUR book club TOGETHER. If you don’t like the way I’m maintaining it or if you have ideas to make it better or suggestions on the books we’re reading, email me and help me out! I enjoy constructive criticism!

Thank you to those of you who emailed me your reading preferrences and such. If you wish to participate in this club and haven’t emailed me your answers yet, please do so soon! I need your email address for one thing. And also, I’ll be compiling a list of what we’ll read based on our suggestions and interests. This is my first crack at a book club so please bear with me. I am open to suggestions!

So right now, we’re reading:

Next up is:

I am using the following sites for ideas:

Borders Book Club Resources

Barnes and Noble Book Club Center

Tattered Cover Recommended Readings for Book Clubs 2005/2006

If you have any more ideas, please email me!

Now, GET READING!

Karen Quinn’s The Ivy Chronicles is the amusing story of what happens when a New Yorker loses her job, her husband, and her ritzy Park Avenue pad and is forced to carve out a new niche for herself and her two private school-educated daughters. After transferring the girls to public school and renting a shabby-chic (at best) flat upstairs from a knicherie, Ivy Ames takes her billionaire friend Faith’s advice and starts a consulting business to help privileged pre-schoolers get into the city’s premier kindergartens. Light on substance yet heavy on laughs, Quinn does a reasonably successful job of following in the well-heeled footsteps of earlier gossip lit standouts such as The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada.

While Ivy’s moral quandaries (is it really wrong to accept an alligator-skin Prada in exchange for securing a child’s placement at a top “Baby Ivy”) and often raunchy romances form the basis for this exposé, it is the toddlers’ family stories that get the most laughs along the way. From Maria Kutcher, whose mob boss father is often referred to as “Kutcher the Butcher” to Winnie Weiner, a “nice Jewish girl from the Upper West Side” who becomes the African-American WaShaunte Washington in order to snag a “diversity” spot at the top schools, Quinn spares no one when it comes to exposing the habits of the rich and almost-famous. Yet even as Ivy begins to see the error of her snobbish ways, Quinn never quite lets her off the hook completely (”…it was such a relief to have a powerful man to lean on. Why couldn’t I have one of my very own? Why?”). Still, for those of us who are in need of a quick laugh and have a few hours to spare, The Ivy Chronicles promises to entertain and amuse. –Gisele Toueg –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.