Jeezum, I gotta lot to read.

Do you get half a point for having seen the movie?

Plunging into feminism and then women’s studies in the early seventies continued to open up my world;Sartre & Camus gave way to de Beavoir and Emma Goldman. Later I was an adjunct instructor in women’s studies for about 9 years. In the mid-70s one study group tackled among others Mao,Lenin,Sheila Rowbotham,and Eli Zaretsky. In the early 80s I was chair of a socialist feminist study group which read books such as Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism. Then I was in a women’s book group for 9 years which focused on working class white and women of color;it broke up because of our varying life circumstances (1 divorce,3 marriages,2 adoptions,3 in grad school,and many job changes).

Now I write book reviews focusing on those “on the edge” for our local progressive paper The Portland Alliance,and have recently started going to 2 Meetup book groups. And belonging to the same women’s writing group for nearly 3 years helps me keep the pen moving,and we also laugh a lot. Write on!

I was just in the process of kicking myself for missing AB’s appearance, and kicking myself especially hard and in especially tender places because:

(1) Being a former grad and instructor at SAIC, I get daily emails with events listings, and routinely delete them without reading.

-and-

(2) I was at the Art Institute ALL DAY on Tuesday for a graphic design conference, and left the building at 5:00, not realizing what was about to take place next door!

-and let’s not forget-

(3) I read this blog all the time, and NEVER check the Appearances page. Oh, and I have a subscription to Time Out.

So thanks for cross-pollinating, Anne. I appreciate it, and I’ll see you November 13th at Women & Children First!

Looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of State x State. As an Alaskan by birth, I have such a fondness for moose, although I have to admit I’ve never field dressed one. Just chased them out of the garden. They love sugar snap peas.

Obviously, the list is gender-biased! Whom do I sue?

OK, so I’ve only read 18 of the books, but I’ve read most of the authors and I’m actually in the middle of “The Group” right now! Not bad for a mathematician I think…

It was fun to see books from different parts of my life. I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn a dozen time in my teens; I just read A Good Man Is Hard To Find earlier this year. And it was all of you here who suggested Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.

Yes, it is astonishing that my monthly book group has lasted so long.To answer your question GinJoint (and now I know what you like, which makes all this more “real”), it’s a group which meets in member’s homes. Most of us knew each other, at least loosely, before we began and we are all lesbians. While several of the women are partners, overall, for whatever reason, we don’t socialize a lot outside of book group.

Our long-standing rule was only books by women, but this year we added queer-themed books by men. Our first book in this category is Middlesex, which I’ve also read and enjoyed.

Our group has grown smaller since 1988, when there were 15 of us. We’ve lost members through moving away, moving on, and of course, break-ups. It’s tricky for new women to feel comfortable because we have so many in-jokes and know and lovingly tolerate each other’s quirks. Still we have two recent members who seem to be sticking around.

Our secret? We really do discuss the book. We hold the first 30 minutes for arriving and socializing and then dive into the discussion. We are enthusiastic readers with good literary training, so we’ve learned tricks for a meaningful discussion, including the fact that some books, while good reads, don’t make for a great discussion.

We read a mix of old and new fiction, biography, occasionally poetry, and non-fiction, including some science-related works. (One of our members was on the team that won a Nobel Peace Prize for their work on climate change.)

Well, this was longer than I intended, apologies for that, but I strongly recommend book groups; they are a fabulous way of building friendships and widening minds.

Does anyone else belong to one? I’d love to swap stories.