Loose Pages Ladies Book Club

New School Meets Old School

My friend Jean at work started a ladies book club with a few other teachers from school. I created a blog for the group, and dutifully read (ok skimmed at times) our first pick:  The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III. The book was pretty depressing; without giving too much away, I'll just say that none of the characters manage to survive the ugliness of their lives fully intact.

Friday was the first meeting of the "Loose Pages Ladies Book Club", which was my first real "social" event outside of school. To be honest I was a little nervous at first, but as soon as I entered that inviting, cozy room, all of my uneasiness melted away. The fact is that I really like all of the women in the club (and our honorary member Cinder the dog), and they immediately made me feel right at home.  The evening was delightfully warm and filled with laughter - a drastic juxtaposition to the novel's tone and themes.

Our host, Mary Pat, was the epitome of graciousness and prepared a spread fit for queens, including delicious cheeses, grapes, dips and chips... followed by fruit, brownies and Italian cookies. She even had personalized bookmarks made for each of us.

As we sat around the glowing fireplace sipping our wine, we talked a little about the characters in the book and a lot about the characters in our own lives. I guess that's one of the reasons why I love books so much - they can transport us to previously unexplored parts of the world, human nature, and ourselves... and having people to share the literary journey with makes the discoveries along the way that much more exciting.

I'm really looking forward to our next meeting in December... especially since my friend Stella, who is also Italian and can cook like nobody's business, is hosting it. Guess I need to start reading our next selection - Skipping Christmas by John Grisham. At least it's about 200 pages shorter than the first book. (Great, now I sound like one of my seniors!)

Beyond myself,

somewhere

I wait for my arrival

Epigraph to The House of Sand and Fog; From "The Balcony" by Octavio Paz