When we spent one day in prison

Last weekend, the book club met to talk about our book for August, which was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I love Russian literature (Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are two of favorite writers), so I was prepared to really like this. But Solzhenitsyn's novel caught me off guard. It was something very un-Russian in terms of character and plot.

I'll write a full post about the novel soon. For now, I'll tell you about what happened last weekend. As usual, I had a grand ol' time with the Flippers as you can see in the pictures below. All pictures have been taken by R., who is the best photogapher ever!

This is my copy of the book. Of course, it's a Penguin. Hehehehe.
To its left is the bookmark given away during the discussion.
To its right are sugar packets, which were part of the "parcel" giveaway.

Arthur did a wonderful job moderating the discussion.
I don't think he had any questions prepared beforehand.
Arthur makes moderating look so effortless!

Angus, a member of another book club, joined us during this discussion.
Here he is comparing differences of translation of two editions.
I hope we get to see more of him in the next discussions

There were plenty of lighthearted moments during the discussion.
And to think that the novel's about a day in the life of an inmate!
Here, Sheila and Gege share their thoughts about this "depressing" book.

The parcel was a key element in the novel.
Arthur made his own version of the parcel that he gave to all attendees.
Inside the parcel were witty items such as fake tobacco (tea leaves actually).

And here I am again hamming it up for the camera.
Hey, I won something for being the first person to arrive at the venue!
Actually, I was just really hungry, and I wanted to eat right away.

R. and I came in matching T-shirts.
I didn't think anybody noticed as the print was very subtle.
We had to ask someone to take this souvenir shot.

The Flippers!
It was one of the most insightful discussions that I've ever participated.
And I believe most of us liked the novel as well.