Book Club :: Lost in the City

I was recently asked by the wife of my husband's former co-worker to join a Book Club. Oddly enough, for someone who reads as much as I do, this is the first time I've been asked to be in a Book Club. (Does that say something about me?)

Currently, there are only three of us in the Book Club, all fairly recent transplants to the D.C. area and all having lived in California. I'm looking forward to getting to know the other two members, and I'm really optimistic that we're going to get along. 

This month's selection was Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones, a collection of short stories about African American life in Washington, D.C. It is a really fantastic book, albeit sobering at times, and it's a quick read. My favorite story was "The Store," perhaps because there was a relatively happy ending compared to the other stories. 

I had actually read the companion book, All Aunt Hagar's Children, when it was first published in 2006 (14 years after the publication of Lost in the City). I remember liking that book as well, and it turns out that each of the 14 stories in Lost in the City has a correlated story in All Aunt Hagar's Children. (But each story and book stands on its own.) That makes me want to re-read both books!