For Book Club, I’ll Bring the Cheese, You Bring The Author

For your next book club meeting, leave the cookies, the wine and the cheese at home. Just bring the author. That’s what Amanda Brooks does. We know many of you meet at Cosi or at someone’s house to discuss a book with each other. Mere child’s play.

Brooks and her gang of 30 readers including Stephanie Hoover, Linda Mackay and Jen Morris got the author to show up at Brooks’ Island Drive home. All this from a Publisher’s Weekly report:

"This morning, about 30 women, ranging in age from about 35 to 45, came to the Rye, NY, home of Amanda “Mandy” Brooks… to attend a private book party for The Middle Place. For the next two hours, the women sipped Pellegrino and coffee, listening to Corrigan talk about her memoir and read passages, buying copies for her to sign, and chatting with each other about books. From 10:00 to noon, the living room of Brooks’s beautiful home in the posh New York suburb was transformed into a bookstore-café of sorts. Corrigan had purchased 70 books that morning at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble, and was somewhat sheepishly taking cash and checks. But the women weren’t shy; everyone bought a book, and many bought two.

(ABOVE, PHOTO: Brook, at right, with the author) Brooks met Kelly Corrigan through her father and then offered to host the event. According to Publisher’s Weekly, this caused a run on the author’s book at Arcade Booksellers on Purchase Street in downtown Rye.