yowbooks

One of the things that I was quite sad to leave behind when I moved to Brazil was my bookclub, affectionately known as yowbooks -- YOW being the airport code for Ottawa. The brainchild of my friends Kim and Teresa and me, the club has been in operation since April 2001. We've read some great stuff and yes, we've read some pretty horrid stuff as well. Now, unfortunately for all my friends who are in other bookclubs, there is no doubt that yowbooks is the funkiest and hippest bookclub in town. Just before I left, we had the Book Club Gala. The Gala was a Black Tie/costume soirée/award ceremony in which awards were presented for our favourite, and least favourite, books, characters, scenes, etc. The bookclub executive compiled a shortlist of books for each category [overall best book, best lead character male, best lead character female, best lead character animal, worst overall book, most surprising book, best romantic scene, ...] and then the lists were open for voting. Some results were a surprise, others were cheered by all. In all, it was a lot of fun and a great last in-person meeting for me.

I say in-person, as we have figured out a way for me to continue being an active participant in yowbooks during my hiatus from Ottawa. Three essential components are involved: i) the dipbag; ii) a speaker phone; and iii) a cheap phone card. Essentially, the current book will be sent to me in Sao Paulo via the Diplomatic Bag and then with the help of a little bit of technology, I will join the bookclub via teleconference (a $5 phone card gives us hours and hours of phoneline). Last night was our first essaie. It was okay -- although things would have gone a bit smoother, had bookclubber Larry brought a real speaker phone and not just an I-can-listen-to-my-messages-aloud-but-nothing-else-phone. So the book club could hear me, but I couldn't hear them. The compromise was to take me off the speaker and let me listen through the ear piece. If I wanted to intervene, I would press a key and then talk. It was okay for a pilot project. However, now that we know that not all speaker phones are created equal, we will be ready for the next meeting. Now I just have to wait for the Dipbag to arrive!