An interview with Kathryn Underwood, founding member of Book Bags book club.
What book are members reading? Currently, we're reading The Lovely Bones [by Alice Sebold]. It's a little girl's perspective. She was brutally murdered, and she's in heaven. And she talks about what it's like to be up there, and she watches her parents from up there, and she watches the murderer. ... It's very different than anything else we've read.
What books have generated good discussions? I think the book that we read that generated the most discussion was Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood [by Rebecca Wells]. We hooted over that book ... and then we all went to see the movie together. And then we read The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, and that generated a lot of discussion. But sometimes if we all like the book, there's nothing to talk about, so it can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing.
Is there a book none of the members liked? We read a Patricia Cornwell book once, and you really have to have a stomach for Patricia Cornwell. And the consensus was that [the book] was disgusting, and we're not going to read anything that intense again. ... I personally like Patricia Cornwell. ... Her books tend to get graphic. ... She usually has a character that is a forensic medical examiner in Virginia.
One of the members wouldn't read one of the books [we read] because she was pregnant at the time. It was called Midwives by Chris Bohjalian. A midwife delivered a baby in the middle of an ice storm, and [the events that follow lead to the fact that] ... the midwife goes on trial. ... That one generated the most discussion, and it was very emotional. ... That author writes good books for discussion about moral dilemmas. And we always seem to do really well if the book has a reader's guide, and this one had a reader's guide either on the publisher's Web site or in the back of the book.
How many members does your club have? We started out with 12, and three have left, so now we have nine. We host it in each others' homes, and we've found that 12 people is a lot of people to have in your house, so we've capped it at nine.