Hi, Everyone!

Hello, Bookies:

So we get to close out 2010 together, though even as I type that I still can't quite wrap my head around the fact that the year has blown by. I'm Maura Fritz, a deputy editor on RealSimple.com, and like Noelle and Kristin, I'm on my second go-around leading the club. Here on the site I have a wide range of duties, from working with the magazine's beauty/health and fashion editors to writing some of our weekly and monthly newsletters. But probably the responsibility I get the biggest kick out of is overseeing the book club. Which means I'm behind many of these book club posts—so think of me the next time you get a vote, vote, vote! missive.

Though I don't think we could have gone wrong with any of the four choices this month, I'm particularly thrilled you voted in I Capture the Castle. It's been on my to-read list pretty much since it was reissued a decade or so. That's a long time to linger on a list, I know, especially since I'm a sucker for British countryside/novels of manners/Jane Austen drawing-room dialogue/romance, and this book promises to deliver. (Do you have a book you've been meaning to read forever? Tell me below.)

So on to it. Let's break up our reading into three sections, like this:

Chapters 1 through 7: for Friday, December 3

Chapters 8 through 12: for Friday, December 10

Chapters 13 through the end: for Friday, December 17

One last thing: If you like to see film versions of books you've enjoyed—or if you're George Costanza— there is a 2003 film of I Capture the Castle, as reader Ginger noted earlier. Hello, Netflix!

Happy reading, Bookies. So, until next week. Have a safe and very happy Thanksgiving.

—Maura

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