"The Goldfinch" Part I Book Club Ideas {by Donna Tartt}

Our book club has been looking forward to reading THE GOLDFINCH for the past four months- let me explain why.
Back in March I opened an email that came from a lovely gal who works for Little Brown & Company. Wait, is this for real, did someone from one of the LARGEST PUBLISHING HOUSES actually contact me and my book club?!? Yes, this is REAL, this is a real email!

Here is an excerpt from the email I received,

"I love your book club. In fact, everyone here at Little, Brown loves it—ever since I saw your post about BOSSYPANTS and sent it around to my colleagues, we've been raving about you guys. The editor of the book—our publisher, Reagan Arthur—even forwarded your post to Tina Fey. Her response? “Oh my goodness, that is adorable. And it must have been a nine-hour meeting.”
 I wanted to reach out and see if you’d like to become one of our Book Club Insiders, From the PowerPoint to the menu, from the performance to the discussion, you guys are really a perfect example of what book clubs can be. Finally, would your group be interested in reading THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt?" 

I didn't realize until I finished reading that email that I was standing in place doing my happy jig that I do when I'm really excited! (It's a real thing, I can't help but dance when I'm happy!) I was thrilled that our book club became noticed by Little Brown and even more thrilled to know that they wanted Delicious Reads to become "Book Club Insiders" for them!! So, when Little Brown asked us to read the 770 page Pulitzer Prize winning book THE GOLDFINCH we all immediately said "YES!"
My hope is that anyone reading this post will find some great ideas for their book club and find inspiration in the pages of this fantastic book.

This Book's Moderator was

BROOKE!

*Brooke is an aspiring author, obsessed with debuting her first novel- REMality. She blogs once a week and also contributes on Delicious Reads with her "Writerly Rants" series. As our Moderator, Brooke planned the entire evening including: finding the book inspired décor, putting together the menu, hosting her quiz, creating the discussion questions and powerpoint and putting together the fun "art exhibit" we toured before our book discussion!

Welcome to "Hobart and Blackwell's," 

Please ring the green bell if you'd like to come in to join our book discussion. (pg. 120)

Right as members walked into book club, they were escorted into the "art gallery" where they were directed to enjoy the "festive champagne" and hors d'oeuvres. 

Everyone sipped their drinks and nibbled on the yummy finger foods while observing the many "masterpieces" hanging on the walls as we discussed the difference in Line, Texture, Color, Shape...just kidding, we mostly gossiped about the book because we couldn't wait to start talking 

about it!

Brooke explained to us that all of the "art" we were looking at were actual paintings mentioned in The Goldfinch.

If you want to see all of the artwork mentioned and/or described in The Goldfinch then you have to check out THIS Pinterest board that compiled them!

These finch inspired appetizers that Elizabeth created were DELICIOUS!
If you would like to learn to make them for yourself, you can find the blog post with instructions HERE.

After we finished "culturing" ourselves (cough, cough) in the art gallery, we moved into the kitchen to load up our dinner plates and grab a Goldfinch Mocktail.

Here is the full menu Brooke put together for The Goldfinch and if you read closely, you will see page numbers marked by many of the foods indicating why she choose what she did.

You can find this AMAZING and addictive carbonara recipe at Cara Nicoletti's Yummy Books blog which is GORGOUS and will make you want to lick your computer screen.  

(Photo by Nicoletti from Yummy books)
Find this decadent open faced cheese sandwich recipe over at Yummy Books along with many other Goldfinch recipes

The recipe we used for this heavenly panna cotta was from The Kitchn and it was DELICIOUS!

Want to know WHY there is an over sized Xandra drivers license sitting in the middle of the kitchen during our meeting? 

Then you'll just have to come back tomorrow for Part II of The Goldfinch post where I explain the rest of our evening including why Xandra was on all of our minds. ;)