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Reading Between The Wines

10 Years, 12 Friends, And 100 Books

The book club, named “Reading Between The Wines”, was started by my friend when our kids were still in elementary school. At the time she approached me to join, reading was not even a thought. Because I was so busy raising three little girls, I was used to collapsing in bed at night with the remote zoning out. After a moment of hesitation, I accepted the offer and purchased the book.

Our First Chapter Began

A few weeks later, twelve women met at a local restaurant for happy hour. The best part, some were people I never met. We spent the first hour just talking, enjoying the food, and the delicious libations. Once the book club discussion started, it was led with thought provoking questions.

It turns out, listening to people’s reviews and observations is fun and I realize how much I enjoy talking about the written drama.

New Books And New Chapters

I always look forward to the next book being selected. We each take turns choosing a selection we feel the group can really dive into. Over the years, I’ve gotten to know these women through books and sharing of personal stories related to the current book choice.

Many of these friends I don’t see or talk to until the next book club meeting. We are women brought together by one common interest – the love of reading. I believe this is one of the reasons our book club has been so successful. It’s not filled with my best friends but instead a group of women with different interests and perspectives. I read books that I may not have chosen because many of us have different literary tastes.

Some Book Just Need To Be Discussed

There’s a reason Oprah and other book clubs have national attention. Really good books make it impossible not to talk about them. I remember reading The Glass Castle while on vacation and several people coming over to talk to me about the book. The twists, drama, and shock is impossible to keep a person silent.

It’s Just Fun

No matter how serious the topic has been, we have always had fun catching up on our lives together. As women, and especially as we grow older, we thrive on friendships and a book club is a great excuse to get out and make new friends.

Have You Ever Thought Of Starting A Book Club?

10 Fun Book Club Names

The Bookaholics
On the Same Page
Books & Beyond
Wandering Minds
My Wine Club Has a Book Problem
Between the Covers
Take a Break Book Club
The Meet-Cutes
The Page Turners
Fiction Addiction

Do You Have A Book Club?

What is your favorite part of being in a book club? What have you been reading lately? Let us know in the Comments below.

Kelly's Book Shelf

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Never too late To Start Writing

Do you think you’re too old to publish a book? it’s simply not true that writing and publishing is a young person’s game. Women in their midlife have life experiences they can draw on to bring vitality, accuracy, and relevance to their writing.

Here are well known writers who got their start publishing books or their first best seller when they were in their midlife.

Toni Morrison

The Nobel Prize-winning author was 40 years old when she published her first novel, The Bluest Eye. The book was completed while Morrison was busy balancing her job as a teacher at Howard University and also raising two children on her own after a divorce. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement.

Karen Blixen

Blixen, who wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen, published her blockbuster book, Out of Africa, when she was 52. In this book, she gives a true account of her life on her plantation in Kenya. She tells with classic simplicity of the ways of the country and the natives: of the beauty of the Ngong Hills and coffee trees in blossom. Out of Africa is the lyrical and luminous memoir of Africa that launched a million tourist trails.

Janet Fitch

Fitch was initially pursuing a career as a historian. Kicks was published in 1996, when Fitch was 39 years old. She is now best known for White Oleander, a 1999 novel that was feted by Oprah’s Book Club and then adapted for film in 2002. Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes-each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned-becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

Sue Monk Kidd

Kidd published her first work of fiction at 54, after having published three memoirs. Set during the 1964 Civil Rights Movement, The Secret Life of Bees is the story of a young white girl who runs away from home with her black maid. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.

Mira Jacob

Jacob’s first book took 10 years to write and was finally published when she was 41. It is the story of an Indian-American family and told through the second-generation daughter’s point of view. When Amina’s father is ill, she goes back home to Albuquerque, NM from Seattle, WA. There is the ever-present shadow of a dead brother and other family secrets to create tensions between all of them. The ongoing struggles with cultural differences and self-identity play out in real, believable ways.

Annie Proulx

Proulx’s first novel, Postcards, was published when she was 57. Her other novel, The Shipping News, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She is the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Accordion Crimes. In 2001, The Shipping News was made into a major motion picture. Proulx’s famous short story, Brokeback Mountain, about two cowboys who fall in love with each other, and begin a lengthy, troubled affair was also made into a major motion picture.

1 thought on “Books”

Kelly
June 20, 2021 at 2:19 pm

We read The Last Flight for our book club. I thought the characters were interesting and the book provided plot twists to keep me interested. It was an easy, fast book to read which made it perfect for my first summer kick- off book.