Katherine said that she’s done a lot of bookclubs, and you know how most of the time people end up sitting around eating chocolate cake instead of actually discussing the book? Well, she forgot that she was dealing with true booklovers here, and not just a bunch of women who were looking for an excuse to get out of the house and eat snacks that they didn’t have to share.

We tackled the issues of motherhood, the experience of the woman through the decades, marriage, and got lots of insider information about the process of writing.

It’s about 50 minutes long, and I hope you’ll listen. If you asked a question as you linked up to the main post for the Everyone is Beautiful bookclub, it was answered — either directly or indirectly.

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Tweet-Up Thursday June 4 from 10 – 11pm Eastern

And now — part two of the fun interaction for this book. On Thursday June 4, we’ll be meeting up on Twitter from 10 – 11pm (Eastern). We’ll use the hashtag #EiB, so you can search for that and lurk, but I do hope you’ll at least say “hi.” I am NOT one to give twitter advice, and I’m sure that most of you manage your account quite effectively, but if you’ve never done a tweet-up, I enjoyed using the tweetchat application. It automatically marks your tweets with the right hashtag and follows the others as well, even if you don’t follow that person.

We will select a winner from among those who join us for the tweet-up! One person will win an autographed copies of her first two novels: The Bright Side of Disaster and Everyone is Beautiful.

Here’s what I’d love to chat about:

1. Funny scenes — almost everyone mentioned the humor, so be ready to share a scene that made you LOL.
2. Favorite lines — one of our prizes for those who link up their thoughts about the book (there’s still time — drawing Friday) is a personalized canvas from Katherine Center, so if you can think of some great lines, that might be one that she uses.
3. If you liked this, you’ll like that. I think that this is a fun way to extend the circle. Tell people some books that this reminded you of. If they loved that book, but haven’t read Everyone is Beautiful yet, that might convince them. On the flip side, it will give those of us who did enjoy the book some others to explore.

I will take notes on the tweet-up and post them here for reference, so if you aren’t able to participate, check back here on Friday. Edited on Friday: Okay, I’m going to just say you had to be there. It was a lot of fun laughing over scenes and sharing common experiences. You can search the hashtag #EiB and check out some of our fun. @booksandmovies won the two signed books and the winner from the bookclub discussion is #9 foodieplus4.

Want even more? Follow Katherine on twitter @katherinecenter, read her blog, and check out her author website.

What do you do when you have some really smart and wise women on your team? You shut up and listen to them, that’s what.

Dawn and Lisa spoke very articulately and passionately in our bookchat in conjunction with the Classics Bookclub on Les Miserables, so please have a listen.

We focused on the relationship between Jean Valjean and Javert. We also stumbled over our French (I did anyway), so if anything you can laugh at us (me).

It ends with us discussing the application of this study of the the law versus mercy in regards to our parenting.

We had some technical difficulties, so some of it is a bit garbled and we had to cut some of it out completely, but hang in there — it clears up.

Feel free to leave comments on your thoughts of our discussion, and other than doing bookchats on our Classics Bookclub books, let me know if you have any other ideas.

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Our first was an attempt to have a discussion about our February selection of the Classics Bookclub.

We discussed memoir in general and a few of our thoughts about this one in particular. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was a difficult read, and perhaps in hindsight having three white girls discuss the memoir of an African American woman from the rural south in the 1930′s was a bad idea. Race is a tough topic to address sensitively and honestly, but I hope that we achieved that.

Once we get our feed approved, you will be able to subscribe in itunes, but for now you can listen here or download it to your computer to listen to at your convenience (you can even download to itunes now, by selecting “other program”).

I tried to edit it down unsuccessfully so it’s pretty long. I guess I’d love your thoughts on ideal length. As a frequent podcast listener, to me 20 – 40 minutes is great, but if you are listening on site, you might get distracted or bored after 10. I would say that the first 20 minutes is good and it gets a little rambly and repetitive after that.

So please come and “meet” Melissa, Lauren and me, and let us know what you think — about our specific discussion, about how dorky I sound and how articulate Melissa and Lauren sound, or about podcasts you’d like to hear in the future.

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Do you want to hear my first-ever podcast? Click over to 5 Minutes for Mom and take 8 minutes to listen to my interview with registered dietician and Baby Fat Diet co-author Monica Bearden.

And that leads me to a question for you:

Would you be interested in regular (or semi-regular) 5 Minutes for Books podcasts? They would be registered at itunes, so you could subscribe, or you could just listen to them on this site.

Some ideas I’ve had are Classics Bookclub discussions, author interviews which could be posted in conjunction with my reviews of their books, and authors reading excerpts of their books.

Do any of those sound interesting to you? Do you have any other ideas?