My book group - really a group of dear, long-time friends - read When Everything Changed, mostly because the author, Gail Collins, is a friend of one of the mbrs of the group. It's a second vol of women's history, the first was the first 400 yrs of Am. w's history. This one is capturing the time from 1960's to the present. We met in January to discuss the book...............WEEELLLLL! We had such a lively discussion and had so much to say that we only got to about 1965 in our discussion, soooo we met yesterday to continue...............dejevu all over again! We talked thru the 70's and just got started on the 80's. So, we're mtg again on Mar 28th!
If we were an ordinary book group who just happened to come together, i'm sure we wouldn't be stretching it out like this, but most of us have known each other thru the last 30 yrs and we've all lived thru much of what Gail talks about in the book, often living it together.
We've all been around and in the contemporary women's movement thru those yrs. One of the women i've known since 1963 and was a friend and in a c-r group w/ me in the 70's. Three of us were on the staff of the county YWCA together in the late 70's, 4 of us were founding mbrs of a group that started the Alice Paul Institute in 1985, Alice's 100th anniversary yr, and we fussed and stressed thru buying Alice's family's homestead and turned it into a women's history/ women and girl's leadership training institute in 1991.
We can be very personal in our discussion because we know each other so well. We've seen each other's families grow up and know the DH's, etc. ........the book group started about 7 yrs ago when our lives began slowing down and we all had some time to read and meet........ We meet at my house because i have a round dining room table that creates an intimate, cozy discussion site. ..........we're just having too much fun. Now if i could just get everybody to take their left-over food contributions home w/ them instead of leaving them at my house, it would be perfect.........jean
