I love to entertain, but I am especially passionate about tablescapes.

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Maybe you’re like me and love to read books, and also possibly in a book club…

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My Book Club meets monthly with the exception of July, August, and December.  Our group (all women) is a small group and we like it that way.  Keeping our group small allows us each month to not only “catch up” with each other socially, but also spend the time we want to actually discuss the book.

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In addition to books, our group also “does lunch”. We all love to entertain, so we rotate homes and each take a turn hosting book club and serving lunch. There is no right or wrong way in our group as to hosting in our home. Hosting has run the gamut from semi-formal (using the good china & silver, cooking homemade recipes, etc.) to very casual. A good dessert and/or chocolate always seems to make an appearance each month too.  Sometimes our lunches have included wine (especially appropriate when we discussed “The House of Mondavi“), or even meeting and eating at a restaurant.  Any of the scenarios are fine with our group.  It is all about getting together and the enjoyment we get from “good reads and good company”.

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My last turn hosting was in September.  I love the colors and the beauty that the fall season brings.  With its vibrant colors, autumn is one of my favorite times of the year to entertain and decorate my home.

I usually served lunch in my kitchen, but this time I decided to use my dining room.  Here’s a glimpse at the tablescape I put together for our September book club lunch.

I find inspiration in the outdoors and love to bring the “outside in” to decorate my home.

The book we were discussing was “Defending Jacob” by William Landay.  Our group overall found the book to be quite disturbing, but we did have a very interesting discussion from it.

I combined the look of fall with books & reading.  I cut branches off some of my trees and put them in a vase.  I then hung pages from a book on the branches.  A fall wreath surrounds the base of the vase.

I also rolled up some of the pages, tied them with twine, and added those to the table.

I put stacks of books on the table and throughout the room to add ambience.

 I like to collect different leaves from outside and use them in various places to add another element of autumn in my home.  I scattered some of the leaves on the table.  My fall napkins were tied with raffia.

I didn’t take pictures of the food, but I served tuna fish on lettuce along with heirloom tomatoes drizzled with a reduced balsamic vinegar.

I hope you found some inspiration from my tablescape and maybe for even some of you the motivation to start your own book club.  I’d love to hear about any good reads that you would recommend, and also what other book clubs are doing at their discussions.