The book club works the night shift

So I just finished moderating the discussion for this month over at the book club. I co-moderated Stephen King's Night Shift discussion with R., who had all these great ideas to make the discussion a little different. And let me just say this—it was just so much fun to organize!

Of course, we went a little crazy. Filled up all the loot bags with candy and other knick knacks such as notebooks, toy rats, mini skeletons. Had 20 designs for the bookmarks. Had matching shirts made for the discussion. Sometimes, my OC self could not handle it!

The venue was a little bit unconventional. We rented this old house, the Thelmo ancestral house in Manila, to add a creepy vibe to the discussion. And we chose to hold the discussion late in the afternoon, around 5.30 pm, so that we'd spend the early evening hours at the house.

I think the members of the book club, the Flippers, enjoyed it! Thank goodness! They better! After all the months of preparation, the copious notes that we wrote, the game that we had at the opening, etc., I would die if it didn't turn out the way we planned.

Anyway, here are some of the pictures taken during the discussion, which I'd like to share with you, dear reader. These were taken by R., who was shuffling between the roles of being photographer and moderator.

The T-shirt design
R. tried to incorporate as many elements of Night Shift into the design
We had 4 T-shirts printed: 2 for us, 1 for Mitch (who helped us with the venue)
and 1 for the winner of the best in costume, even though costumes were optional

Food was potluck.
Here's Marie doing the finishing touches for her lemon squares.
Her lemon squares were actually round. Hehehe. But they were delicious!
Marie also helped out tidy the place. Thanks, Marie!

A corner of the old house
The old paintings of the Thelmo family added a very vintage touch.
And they were really creepy, in a wonderful way.

We started with an early dinner at 5.30 pm.
And knowing the Flippers, the food was just overflowing!
There were pies, chips, baked mussels, noodles, spring rolls, donuts, and more!
I guess a Flipper's biggest fear is to go hungry.

R. hamming it up with this prop.
For the life of me, I can't figure out the pop culture reference!
And look at the shirt!

After dinner, we proceeded to talk about the horror genre in general.
And then we had a quick game about the stories in Night Shift.
There were 4 teams which I designated as follows:
the rats, the worms, the children of the corn, and the quitters.

Then we went to the basement for another part of the discussion.
Here we talked about one aspect of horror in Night Shift that focused on the everyday:
suicide, deadly bets, serial killers, disease.
Oh, the house's caretaker shared something frightening with us.
She can sometimes here children in the empty basement!

Then we went to the house's courtyard. I think it was already past 7 pm.
Here we talked about King's supernatural horror,
the kind involving monsters, vampires, and what-have-you.
We also talked about 2 stories in Night Shift that were not specifically horror.

We held the last part of the discussion in another living room of the house.
I guess you can call it the parlor. (Who has a parlor these days?)
We asked the members to rate the book from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest.
Judging from the scores they gave, most of them liked the book! Woot!

I counted 23 happy participants! Yay!
The last time R. and I moderated separately, we had 30+ attendees each.
This time, to control the number, we chose to make it an invite-only event.

I saw these cookies at a cake shop near my office.
And right there, I just knew that we should have them in our loot bags.
They taste great too!
Besides, who doesn't like cookies?