Book Club

When I was in my twenties I participated in a women's consciousness raising group. We sat around in a candle-lit room in a circle on an avocado colored shag rug and talked about our mothers and griped about the men in our lives. Gradually I lost interest and I left the group. I hadn't had much real connection with my mother for years and I was pretty satisfied with the man in my life (who actually did the laundry). I didn't want to sit on the floor anymore. Those women were so dissatisfied with everything. I loved that regular connection with women,and I supported women's lib in every way, but I craved more substance from an organized happening.

I can't exactly remember how it began, but a number of women who had loose connections to the newspaper, got together to form a book club. I was asked to join in the very early days. Now there are ten of us. There were never more than twelve. The membership has undergone subtle changes. A few people moved away, some just couldn't put in the time to read a book a month, and some left for unclear reasons. Other people joined. We have never explicitly thought of it as a womens' thing. It just happened that way. The core group has been very steady.

We have been doing the book club for twenty-five years, the last Tuesday of each month. The deal was, and still is, the book club host of the month selects the book, sends out notices, prepares a dinner,leads the discussion, and cleans up afterwards. We all gather at 7:30 p.m., chat over a glass of wine, eat dinner, and then begin the discussion. Suzanne is the unofficial secretary who reminds us of who is to be the next host. She also keeps a list of all the books we have read.

We were all working women and we all have kids. In the early days of book club it was so hard to host a meeting. We persuaded our husbands to mind the children, take them out (anywhere!) and get them out of our hair for just an evening. I do not remember at any time that small children screamed or dashed in to our meetings, wanting their mom. A few times we would see well-behaved kids coming through the room,toting violin cases or soccer balls, and all of us knew that it was a pretty hard deal for families to let mom alone to have an adult evening at home without them. I knew I dreaded the punishment I got when it was my turn to be the book club host. Even today, when all our children are grown, I might see the host's husband lurking around looking uncomfortable.

I look at the four pages of single spaced, double columns of books we have read in these twenty-five years. I am amazed! We have read lots of novels, of course, a lot of non-fiction, classics, biography, sociology. There are some books on the list I can barely remember, others are as clear to me as if I read them last month. I hated some of them. We learned to love some authors and we compared their works. Many choices opened up wonderful far ranging discussions. There were evenings when our meeting lasted far into the night.

But what could account for this incredible longevity of a book club? We all love to read, and all of us are thoughtful and smart. Our group has never dissolved into just talking about the purely personal. Our mission is to read and discuss the book. Several members are good friends with others, but as a group we are never mired in the personal tellings of our lives. We don't know each other's birthdays, we never discuss health issues, we don't send each other holiday cards. Book club is the most socially 'free' thing we do. And we treasure it. You can come to book club in the clothes you were wearing at work, or in sweats or shorts. Costume is not important. Each month almost everyone comes.

And yet, each of us knows that we could call on any member if we needed to in time of trouble. Over the life of the group, there have been divorces, the agonizing launching of our children, life threatening health issues, work problems and the whole spectrum of human failures. There have been triumphs as well.

Several of our members are known to be wonderful cooks. We all look forward to going to book club THAT night! Often, the host cooks up something with a theme that refers to our month's book. (but how many Italian themed books have we read?) Others of us just scrape up something and hope for the best. But whatever it is, we relish it. A few years ago we thought it would be better if we only did dessert and coffee. That lasted for one month; we wanted that dinner, whatever it was!

Next month it is my turn. I have selected the book, sent out the notices by e-mail and postcard. Fortunately, the book has an Italian theme. My husband (the family chef) will be out of town, the kids are grown and gone, the dog is small, and hopefully, the contractor will not be replacing the living room windows. Ravioli?