The Jane Austen Book club meets on February 13, at 6:00 pm in the MacIntyre Room in the Carnegie Building at 244 W. Michigan Ave.  We are reading Margaret Maron this year. She's a North Carolina native whose first novel, "Bootlegger's Daughter" won every major mystery award for best first novel. That book was the first to feature Deborah Knott, whose colorful Daddy was a bootlegger. Deborah is an attorney who decides to take a stand against "mean-minded judicial pettiness" and take on the Old Boy's Club by running for a retiring judge's seat.

We have challenged ourselves this month.

    Recommended by a teacher, the book Dope sick is based in the realism found in many of the popular urban fiction titles. But Myers gives the nod to acclaimed South American writers Isabel Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez by adding magical realism to his usual NYC inner-city setting. It opens with a young man, Lil J, on the run from the police with a bullet in his arm. Then the book takes a detour into fantastic realms when Lil J runs into an abandoned building.

    A funny!  I was delighted  to discover that the book Dog on it by Spencer Quinn was a hoot.  Not expecting anything beyond a cozy PI book, Dog on it turned out to be one of the better reads this year. This series is told by Chet the Jet, an almost K9 trained mutt.