Moderating Carter Beats the Devil

This past March, I moderated the book club discussion for Carter Beats the Devil.  The book club I belong to is a little different than most book clubs, our discussions are more like book parties complete with decorations, a themed menu, prizes, surprises, give aways, and of course wonderful, thought provoking discussions.  As moderator it was my job to create the entire evening, I planned the menu, came up with all the decorations, and lead the discussion.  Our beautiful buffet was made possible by all of our wonderful book club members, we post the menu to the evite and everyone signs up to bring something.  We always eat very well on book club nights.  I hosted the evening for when we read The Night Circus as well, click the link to see pictures from that fun book party!

Angie and me recreating the cover of the book.

Carter Beats the Devil isn't a super well known book, but it definitely should be.  It is a masterfully crafted story with amazing historical details.  The book takes place in San Francisco in the 1920s and follows the adventurous life of Carter the Great, a real magician that lived during that time.  Most of the main characters in this book are real people from history, Philo Farnsworth plays a pretty major role in the story so there were a few shout outs to Provo and Salt Lake City, Utah!

The Book Thief has been my most beloved book for years, Carter Beats the Devil has knocked it down to my second favorite book and has stolen the title of my most favorite book.  If anyone ever asks me for a book recommendation, I will be telling them to read this amazing novel.

Here are some detail shots of the food and the decor, everything turned out so well!  Hopefully some of you readers have read the book and will be able to appreciate some of the details that come straight from the book.

Before we started our discussion, the Devil appeared out of thin air to perform a magic trick on our Carter Cocktails!  It was quite the presentation!

After dinner and drinks it was time for the discussion.  Everyone pretty much agreed that this book was such an amazing read.  The historical research that went into creating such a detailed work of historical fiction is astounding, Glen David Gold is a genius.  I began the discussion with a fun give away.  I had everyone draw a card from a normal deck of cards, then I summoned the winning card out of one of our members book!  Jenny was the lucky winner of my magic themed give away!

For the actual discussion I had a slideshow playing in the background showing pictures of all the historical figures in the book so everyone could see what these characters really looked liked.  I then used my magic hat and pulled out several items.  Each item represented something I wanted to discuss from the book, either a major character or major theme woven throughout the book etc.  It was a really fun discussion and we had a lot of participation!

It was such a fun evening, many thanks to all those who helped make is such a magical night