Our Book Club

Mark and I are in a couples book club.  We meet once a month and one couple picks the book and provides the venue.  We love the summer months when we go to the Smith's cabin in Lamb's Canyon and bar-b-q.  We have gone to movies together if they are appropriate to the book.  We all bring whatever we want for the dinner and it is the highlight of the month.  I always leave feeling that I talk too much but so do a few others in the group.  

When we started out several years ago the hosts bought the book and we all paid them back. Now it is much easier, we just provide the book on our month and if you don't want to spend much, you pick a cheap book!  Because we have been doing this for so long there is a certain amount of trust and camaraderie that is seldom experienced.  We have a nurse, 2  Canadians, a psychologist, a computer scientist, an architect, a writer of children's books, a high school teacher, a hospital business consultant,  the chemical engineering department head at the U of U, an attorney (a great guy but has only read one book),  a timing business owner (best looking!),  a military officer, a mother of 8 children all at home,  and 5 more at home moms, a stock broker, and two democrats for a total of 9 couples.  It is such an interesting mix of people who are roughly the same age, the same religion and live in the same neighborhood.  It is such a lively exchange with differing opinions but with full respect for each other.  We are at different reading and comprehension levels and yet we all contribute although some more than others. We have all become more critical readers underlining passages to discuss and doing research to share.  We have read Twilight to Einstein and everything in between.  It is better than any literature class.  

Last month the Johnsons did not show up and went to a movie instead (they forgot).  With some very gentle prodding, most of us tp'd their house on that rainy night.  One guy had never even done that before.  Of course I was instructing him on the finer points of doing a really good job.  This month we all confessed since Patrick had been getting the blame and never snitched on us. 

We rarely get home before midnight and Mark usually has his shoes and socks off, his pants losened, and has started snoring more than a few times but he wouldn't miss it. He has become quite a critical reader and it is so much fun to discuss issues before the meeting.  

I have been in many book groups through the years but all of them have been with women.  I loved those groups but they are not the same as having men around.  Everything is different and it reminds me that I have always "enjoyed the company of men (and boys)".