Gary Wyatt is the facilitator of the “Page Turners Book Club” in Sullivan, MO. His group keeps things fun by having themed food and drinks at meetings. Gary describes in this interview how his book club celebrates certain holidays, recapping one memorable story concerning their 2006 Christmas party. He also offers an amusing anecdote about an author reading he and a friend attended and one very noisy camera.

Q: Does your group have a name and/or a theme? How long has your group been in existence?

A: Our group is called the “Page Turners Book Club.” We will have been together five years this coming June.

Q: How many members do you have? How many men, how many women? What age are most of your members?

A: We have six women and two men now. At first we had 10 women and two men, but with job changes and moves we have shrunk. Ages range from a member who is 68 to another who is 20-something.

Q: How often do you meet? Where do you meet?

A: We meet monthly. We meet in members’ homes, at wineries, parks and a church. One month we met at my camper in a campground around a campfire!

Q: Do you eat at your meetings? What do you eat? Who brings the food?

A: We eat! The host supplies drinks and everybody else brings a snack to share. Sometimes we have a theme. For example, we did My Antonia, which is about farming. We all wore cow items and had purple cows to drink (spiked ones that is, with vanilla vodka). We usually have wine at our meetings otherwise. We have also had themed foods or types of recipes before. That's always fun!

Q: Who leads the discussion? Do you use reading group guides?

A: I usually lead the meetings. We use reading group guides, either from inside the book or ones found online. Barnes & Noble is a good resource for that. Otherwise I Google it!

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: Fiction mostly, but we also read some nonfiction and a few short stories as well. We usually do something scary in October.

Q: How do you choose your books? Do you choose one new book at each meeting, or do you choose the books for a number of meetings ahead of time?

A: We discuss ideas members have and try to pick books for two to three months ahead.

Q: What were some of the best discussions or favorite books the group read?

A: Oh my! After five years that's hard to say. I would say we have done our best discussions with a classics novel, and using those reading guides keeps the ball rolling for sure. I'd say most of the books we have read are favorites. We are pretty good about saying what books we don’t like and we don't always agree. That's what makes it fun!

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: We keep things fun by using a theme. We dress up like our favorite book characters at Halloween. We have a drawing for a prize. We also collect yearly dues to be able to spend to do special things at meetings. We have had Christmas parties and we also attend an outdoor Shakespeare festival together. We attend other plays and saw “The Nutcracker” this past Christmas. We also have attended some book signings and met authors. Not everyone can go, but some of us have been to quite a few book signings together.

Q: What advice would you give to other reading groups?

A: Have fun! We usually have about an hour to eat and socialize followed by a 90- to 120-minute discussion. We try not to argue! Ha!

Q: Do you have any horror stories, amusing anecdotes, or other special tales to tell?

A: We went to see Gregory Maguire in St. Louis. A friend of mine who goes to book signings always takes her camera. She was taking pictures while he was reading. Her camera began to rewind the film inside and it was very noisy. Gregory had just read a line from his book that a character had asked the Wicked Witch what she wanted most. He stopped and stared at my friend. When the camera stopped rewinding, he said the witch answered that she wanted “peace and quiet.” The whole room went into hysterics! Then, when Gregory saw us in line, he asked my friend if she was there to cause any trouble. We laughed and laughed.

We also attended a Harry Potter party when the last book came out. We went out to eat before at an Italian restaurant. We had way too much food and drink and we were giggly. When we got into the van to leave the restaurant, I asked everyone if they would like an Altoid, which is a mint (as you may know). After I asked five other people if they wanted an Altoid, this one member looked in the metal tin and asked me what it was. I quipped it was a suppository. Without missing a beat, she quipped back that her foot could become a suppository to me. I laughed so hard I had to put my car into park in the street. I couldn't drive. Everybody else was dying laughing too.

I'd say those were our two more worthy amusing stories. There are several. We have a great time together!

Q: Is there anything else unique or noteworthy about your group that you would like to share?

A: Christmas 2006. We don't read a book in December. We usually have a little Christmas party where we eat and enjoy chatting. This particular Christmas we had a "Dickens" of a time! You can order a book online called Christmas with Dickens by Cedric Dickens. Here is the website: http://www.jackprises.com/index.html.

I ordered the book and used it exclusively to do a Dickens Christmas Carol Christmas party. We used recipes inside the book and everyone brought an authentic dish. My wife and I provided the Christmas turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce. On this same website I ordered the CD of Gerald Charles Dickens doing a dramatization of A Christmas Carol on the CD. We had wassail to drink and appetizers when the guests arrived. We listened to stave one of A Christmas Carol enjoying the wassail and appetizers.

Then we took a break to do restrooms and such. Then we listened to stave two. At the end of that we had our meal. We played traditional Christmas carols from the time of Dickens’s life while we ate.

Then, at the end of the meal, I offered coffee and more wassail if anyone wanted it. We listened to stave three. Then we played a game that was played at Dickens’s lifetime that was listed in my book. At the end of the game, we listened to stave four. At the end of that stave we had our "Christmas pudding" dessert. One of the members brought a tapioca pudding with a vanilla wafer crust and put in a sprig of holly, and she had made up a tray and lit a candle on the tray to have "a flaming pudding!" (It would be neat to do the real Christmas pudding that is in the novel…some other year!)

After our "pudding" we listened to stave five. At the end of stave five we opened little presents that everyone brought to exchange, and then I had found little shot glasses that I had put Snowflake stickers on to decorate. Everyone picked a "drink" to pour into their shotglass and then at the end we did a toast to "God bless everyone!" and then downed our shot. I let everyone keep their shot glass and then I presented each member with their own copy of A Christmas Carol and a recipe for a traditional English drink featured in the novel called a Smoking Bishop, which Scrooge and Bob Cratchit enjoy together. (I tried the recipe the Christmas of 2007 and it's good!) I also had everyone take a short quiz on the story. I found it online. It had 10 questions. I quickly graded them, and the person with the top score won a copy of A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement C. Moore, which was published about the same time or so as A Christmas Carol.

Everyone raved about what a good time they had and how we should do it again sometime. This book you can order also had a table blessing to do before the meal and other things too numerous to mention to do for the evening. I'd highly recommend your book club do this too. I had our house all decorated and had a very festive table. We got out our nice china and crystal and it was a very enjoyable evening. We started the festivities at six and it was about 9:30 or so when everyone headed home all warm inside after hearing Charles Dickens’s lovely Christmas story!

To order paperback copies of A Christmas Carol, you can go to this website: http://store.doverpublications.com/0486268659.html. I ordered copies for all my book club members and right now they are on sale 75 cents apiece --- unabridged! (I paid a dollar at the time!)

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