Book Club

The Ladies of Leisure Book Club

The book club has been in existence for 15 years. It started with a membership of six retired professional ladies from different parts of the Northwest Region of Indiana. Through the years they have had members to pass and or quit and several to join which makes their current membership count 16.  The ages of the ladies range from 56-74. There are seven retired teachers, four retired librarians, one retired mill worker, two retired nurses, and one retired accountant. The ladies work in groups of two when planning a book discussion. The discussions are usually held at one of their homes. There is normally some type of refreshments served. They meet the third Saturday of each month from 5 p.m. – 8p.m. I thought wow, three hours for a book discussion but after attending I understood why.  I attended the January 17^th meeting. The book that they were discussing was entitled “Sugar” by Bernice L. McFadden. The gathering of the ladies and the atmosphere for the discussion was very relaxed, easy-going and fun but very structured.

The ladies began promptly at 5:15 p.m. with prayer request and then a prayer. Everyone got refreshments and socialized until about 6:00 p.m. This time period is allotted to give any late comers a chance to get there before starting the discussion and it allows everyone to catch up on what has been going on in each other lives since their last gathering. The ladies found that this also avoids most sidebar conversations during the discussion. Each group decides how they want to lead the discussion. This particular one started with a brief summary of the book by one of the group leaders. After giving the summary the other leader started to ask prepared questions. The questions lead to them talking about the different characters and different parts of the book. Everyone was hitting on different points in the book. They would at times get so involved in the discussion that questions were answered that she had prepared to asked before getting to them. The ending of the book was a shocker to most of them. Different ones talked about how they thought it was going to end and who that thought did the killing. At approximately 8:30 p.m. the book discussion ended and the ladies began to discuss which group was in charge next, where the next discussion would be, and what book they were going to read next. The group had chosen a book but the entire club decided that they wanted to read the sequel to “Sugar” because they were all intrigued to know the complete ending to the characters’ Sugar story. The next book that they read was “The Bitter Earth” also by Bernice L. McFadden.

This was not the first book club discussion that I have sat in or been a part of but I must say it was one of the better ones. The ladies were really involved in the discussions and everyone was heard and respected when they had the floor speaking. They offered their own personal opinions about certain parts of the book and different ladies would comment but the discussion stayed in a decent and orderly manner.