I'm hosting book club tonight with my friend and neighbor P. This means that we're feeding book club tonight and throwing the party in Mladost. Most of the time book club is held on campus where a majority of the teachers live but tonight they are coming to us.

In preparation, last night I made a vegetarian lasagna and today after school all I have to do is pop it in the oven and bake it for 45-50 minutes. Then I have to throw together a fruit plate and a cheese plate. All in all it should be pretty easy. Fingers crossed.

The great thing about our book club is that the month you host book club, you're only responsible for the food, some chairs and a toilet. You don't have to actually lead the discussion as well. We've assigned separate discussion leaders so that there's less pressure and worry. It also means that you don't have to try to balance hostessing with leading discussion.

Tonight we're going to be discussing the novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Beasts-Terror-American-Hitlers/dp/0307408841" target="_blank">In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin</a> by Erik Larson. It's a non-fiction piece set in Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power before the outbreak of WWII.  What makes it so good is that it's novel like in descriptions, tone and style but also well researched and historically accurate. It seems as a novelist you couldn't create or dream up a better family than the real family in Larson's book. The family in the novel is full of characters--a wild daughter with a series of unsuitable lovers, a stodgy father, an agreeable mother and a large cast of secondary characters.

Interested? There's a really great author interview here on NPR.