June 16, 2004

Infidelity

I'm cheating on my book club.

A year and a half to two years ago, I joined my first book club. Since I will read just about anything (the side of a cereal box, Gun and Tackle magazine, you name it), this seemed like a good idea. It was, but for reasons that have nothing to do with reading. The book club has ten members, all women, half of whom are lawyers and half of whom are doctors (its an acquired taste). We assign a book, get together, drink wine and talk about our sex lives.

Don't get me wrong, I love these women. They're accomplished, funny, smart and have one hell of a shoe collection. These women, however, don't read. They get really excited about selecting new books, just not about reading them.

Quite a while ago I resigned myself to the fact that these women, wonderful though they may be, aren't going to finish any of the assigned books, so I just show up expecting some good wine and better gossip. I am rewarded every time.

While lamenting (read: whining about) the non-readers in my "book club" to a friend of mine, he suggested I give his book club a test drive. He mentioned a few of the books they'd read in the past, and told me the next three books they've selected for their meetings through August. To make things even easier, he was hosting his club's next meeting and he invited me to join them.

The assigned book was Oyster, which was fitting, as it is set in Plaquemine Parish in the 1950's, and is written by a local author. I headed over to my friend's house on Monday night, and was pleasantly surprised to see not only men (!), but people of various ages, which gave a much richer tone to the conversations. We had a seated dinner and over white wine and shrimp discussed the Greek tragedy overtones in the book, and some people's frustrations with the excessive use of Louisiana food terms (this is a book that has lines like, "The night was as still as a pot of cold gumbo". Quite irritating if you live in south Louisiana, but easily overlooked since the book is plot driven and not overly descriptive).

We ate, drank, talked and laughed and actually discussed the book. Who knew?

Over dinner we selected the book for the September book club (since they've already picked the July and August books). To my surprise, coming from a book club that reads romance novels, they picked The Iliad. No, I'm not joking. And they chose a specific translation, because the translator will be in town and they want to invite him to the September meeting.

I think I'm in love.

Posted by Kitty at June 16, 2004 09:28 AM

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