A life-long reader, Valerie wanted to share her personal story with her fans through her books - Losing It and now Finding It - but she shares her love of books with a close-knit group of women who have been meeting regularly for 12-and-a-half years: Her book club.

"We met each other through our children, who were all in school together," Valerie recalls. "Suzanne Ferleger and I were in the same carpool, and I was dropping off her son. She came out to the car holding the same book I was reading - Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone. We were both fascinated at how a man could write in a woman's voice and Suzanne said, 'Wouldn't it be great if...'"

Those words launched friendships that would form between the covers of books. Valerie and Suzanne invited moms from school and others from outside their normal circles. They started with six women - members have come and gone through the years, but the core has remained steady at about eight. The group meets about nine times a year,. With a small group of diverse lives and interests, Valerie says they try to coordinate their schedules and find one day that works, rather than being locked in to a "third Thursday" or "fourth Friday."

"We decide when we're all in the room and everyone has their calendars," Valerie said. "We never meet in August because of summer vacations. Sometimes we meet every six weeks, rather than every month. This month, we met at my house because that's the day my DVD was being released and I didn't have anything to do that day - but I was busy the rest of the month!"

As the upcoming hostess, Valerie suggested three different books at their last meeting: Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer; Wishful Drinking, a memoir by Carrie Fisher; and Zeitoun by Dave Eggers.

"I was going for Carrie Fisher, but the group picked Dave Eggers because it's about New Orleans and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," she said. "I'm so glad we read Zeitoun. It was heartbreaking, and it will make you so angry at how our government failed so many helpless people. It took them just a few days to build a jail in New Orleans after the hurricane, but they couldn't rescue and evacuate all those victims? Where are our priorities?"

Recently, her book group raved about Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen, about his mission to promote peace by building schools in Afghanistan. 

"It makes you feel like you're not doing much with your life when you read about what he's doing," she said. "It's really good."

And how does she feel about being an author who is also in a book club? Did her book club read her books?

"Oh, I'm not the only author - we have an author and musician and blogger," Valerie said, with a laugh. "Some of them have read my books, and some of them have said, 'We don't want to know that much about you!' But they probably know more than what I've told people in the books!"