Dian, Maesy, Nike and I agreed  to throw the second meeting of our book club the day after the Valentine’s Day. Although the four of us were not usually celebrate that kind of day, we thought it would be interesting to put a theme around Valentine. Yes, you’ve guessed it, it’s about love. Love may applied to a lot of things, not only refer to a romantical relationship between two human being. We chose “The Object of My Affection” as the theme for Cups and Pages volume 2. It can be books about your hobby, books that has a theme about family, anything. This time we invited Ayu Larasati, Fransisca Angela, Nazura Gulfira, and Ovi Dading. It’s pretty interesting to see how each of us interpreted the theme.

The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar was the book that Maesy brought with her. It’s an interesting book because it shows you different versions of a fairy tale, with real illustrations. You think you know the real story about Cinderella? Well, think again. Because the earlier tales tells different stories from the Disney one. Back then, some fairy tales were a bit dark and gory, not as cheerful and (mostly) happy ending like the one we know these days.

As for me, food is one among many objects of my affection. So I brought Feast by Nigella Lawson, a book about how we use food as a way to celebrate life and associated it with certain important moments like Christmas, Eid, wedding, even funeral. It also share some fun facts about the culinary tradition behind every celebration. Nigella also put “Breakfast” chapter in this book because to her it’s like a simple feast to celebrate the fact that we’re alive everyday.

Then it’s Dian turns to share what she loved most about her book, Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks, a non-fictional book that tells about the world of the deaf. From history of how they were seen and treated in the past, to how important the sign-language to helps the deaf community play their role in this world. Having a relative who has hearing loss, Dian get a lot of insight that helped her to understand more about the deaf culture.

Ayu’s Daring Greatly by Brené Brown was the next book to be put into the spotlight. Ayu shared how it helps her get through one of the most difficult time in her life. The book speaks about how the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. As a person, sometimes we fear about other people perception towards us, so we’re affraid to show vulnerability and chose to look strong instead. Ayu loves how Brene show that it’s okay to be vulnerable so that you can feel more and could motivate yourself to be better and strive for the best.

While Sisca shared Tuesday with Morrie as one of her favorite book and the book that discuss about an object of her affection: time. Some of us may already read the book about Mitch Albom’s tuesday meeting with his old professor. They share lots lof life lessons that Sisca found so inspiring and helps her to appreciate time.

Ozu shared a book that written by one of her, Influence by Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen. While most of celebrities chose to write an autobiography, The Olsen twins wrote about people that have been inspired their career and life. They’re mostly fashion people, from photographers to designers, like Karl Lagerfeld and the shoe designer known for his red-sole signature, Christian Louboutin.

Then it was Nike’s turn, and she brought U2: Faraway So Close book, written by B.P Fallon with her. Having to know her since a long time ago I can tell that she is one of U2 biggest fans. She’s the one who created U2Indonesia.com website many years ago. Nike showed us some photos in the book. She also shared how U2 affected her life and motivated her to do creatives things.

Ovi was the only one who came with an e-book. She loved the book The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa so much so she decided to kept its e-book version in her Kindle so that she could read it while traveling. The Bad Girl is a story about how a good boy fell in love with a bad girl who abandon him when she’s not in need, but kept coming back when she lost everything.

Some of us may have already read one or two books that were brought by other participants. But it’s always fun to see how other people viewed it with different perspectives from ours. That’s what we loved the most about Cups and Pages. We get to know new friends, shared a bit about their lives and personalities through their books, and got a lot of new references to read instead of just only discussed about one same book. I’ve linked some of the books to its official website (or goodreads pages if it didn’t have any) so you can also get to know more about the books that we’re discussed above.

We must say that this ‘so-called book club’ is quite an effective way to meet new people. You too can make your own Cups and Pages! If you love to read, why don’t you start a little book-worm gathering with your friends. It’s a great alternative for weekend activities. Thank you for all the girls who came to our mini book-gathering. Can’t hardly wait for the next one!