It wasn’t until I was sitting at the first meeting of the third women’s book group I belong to that I felt a pang of embarrassment. I had thought it was funny that I had just joined another and opened my mouth to say so. But I shut it again, because the fact suddenly dawned on me that this might appear pathetic. I needed more time to ponder.
But really, why should I apologize, or hide the fact? Except that I’d prefer not to be kicked out of any of them, the most likely being this seventeen-member group, which has a waiting list.
Yes, I did say seventeen. I know, that’s a lot for a book group. I think the organizer had no idea when she sent out a feeler e-mail a few years ago that all of us would say yes. Since I had already belonged to a book group with a very sane number of six members for about eight years, I wondered just how this could possibly play out. I thought perhaps we’d need little number cards on sticks for when we wanted to speak and a moderator to be certain everyone had their say. But it works. Most people finish the book, and after dinner we sit in a circle and discuss it.
But book groups are about so much more than discussions of the book, and I think that’s why they’re so popular nationwide, both privately and publicly, with even towns and libraries hosting them.
In my case – cases, that is – I meet with groups of dynamic, interesting, funny women; have made new friends; have free baby-sitting (read: husband); join up at someone’s home (far more personable than a restaurant or bar); have good food, good wine, and good conversation – all for the cost of a potluck item, and possibly a book (ah, libraries). It’s all-inclusive, except for the husband. But it even works out for him, because I get other women’s perspectives on their husbands, and I can see that mine is actually not all that bad.
The setup differs from group to group. My first book group, called the Lost in the Woods group because of certain navigational difficulties, varies between four and six members, and we each bring an appetizer and/or dessert and/or wine, whatever moves us. We collectively decide on a book, sometimes three at a time so we know what’s next. In the Big Book Group (I could tell you it’s name but…), the hostess for the month picks the book, makes a main dish, has non-alcoholic drinks, and assigns appetizers, salad/bread, desserts, and wine (or gin and tonics, as the case may be). This is the group in which I realized that, much as I adore the fact that my husband cooks for my family, I am losing any cooking skills I once possessed. Luckily, I make a mean sangria and can bake.
My newest book group is still a fledgling and has yet to be named. We’ve met five or six times – once on a boat in Edgartown harbor during a thunderstorm, and the other times at the inn of one of the members, wonderful settings both – and we all bring something to eat or drink, much like the first group.
Which brings me to the venues. I hope the Big Book Group doesn’t mind my saying so, but there are some really nice homes in this group. The first has been on the cover of a magazine. The directions for the second said, “When you see the three-car garage…” and the house reminded me of the Harbor View Hotel & Resort when I drove up. I was walking in the dark to the third, when I realized that was water I heard lapping the shore in front of the home. Another has such a large great room that my entire house would fit into it. I tried to figure out a way to get everyone into mine, but it was either empty the house and put down throw pillows, which would have worked thematically with Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors (McPherson & Company, 2004), or have everyone sit on a different step of the stairway going up to the second floor and have them pass food and drink – hardly conducive to conversation. I gained a couple hundred square feet of house when I moved last year, but I still can’t pry everyone in, and all the rain this summer prevented a lawn party. I guess I could select a book with a barn theme and hold it out back. Rustic is in, right?
Which brings us to books, which we actually do read (though that is not required for attendance). There are books that go through the book-club circuits nationally. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Algonquin Books, 2006) comes to mind, as does Still Alice by Lisa Genova (Pocket Books, 2007). The one book that has gone through all three of my clubs is Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Viking Press, 2006), which most people seemed to enjoy, identifying with the author’s search for meaning (the annoying parts notwithstanding).
Several times, I’ve had two out of three groups read the same book, such as Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper Collins, 2007), who is one of my favorite authors. This one, interestingly, really changed some lives, especially in the Big Book Group. My graduate degree is in food policy and applied nutrition, so I didn’t have the same reaction, but this book was seriously eye-opening and action-
inducing to many of these smart, savvy women, and they didn’t want to just read, they wanted to do. So afterward, e-mails flew with information on raw milk and heirloom seed sources, farm-to-school initiatives, food additives and chemical references, and more.
The Lost in the Woods group thrives on characters. They need someone in the story they can relate to. This I deduced during discussions of The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III (W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), which I had read on various remote beaches in the Bahamas, while my husband fly-fished. I so enjoyed it, and was really impressed with the writing. I momentarily thought that maybe the setting I read it in had clouded my judgment when I returned to the group to find that everyone else hated it.
Hated it? But I loved it! It wasn’t a happy book, and the characters didn’t make many sane decisions. What I liked was that it showed how people could make decisions and act in ways they might never have believed possible had they not found themselves in a specific position because of events that occurred at an exact point in time. The group was not swayed. What’s noteworthy now is that this book comes up more than any other in discussions of books we’ve read since then. (I don’t think it’s just me who’s bringing it up. Hmmm.)
So it’s not just about the getting together with girlfriends, or the food, or the homes, or the wine, or the relaxation, or the catching up. Or should I say – it’s not just about the books?
