SOLSC26: The Other Book Group

            I’m in two book groups. Today’s is the first one I joined, almost five years ago, because I was reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63; a friend in my writers’ group was also reading it with her book group, so I asked if I could join them so I could talk about the book.

            We alternate fiction one month, nonfiction the next. Today’s book was nonfiction, Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath. It generated way more discussion than any book we’ve read in a long time. While our thoughts were initially very positive, as we went on, criticisms came up. Most of the women in the group are in education, secondary school, literacy  programs, and administrators, so there were heated comments about  Gladwell’s chapter on colleges. One woman who’d read other books by Gladwell thought this was one of his weaker one; another thought it was a New Yorker article that was padded into book length.  

            Despite our reservations, after almost three hours we hadn’t exhausted our thoughts on the book. Will discussion continue the next time we meet?

            Oh, and the potluck? Everyone always brings food, and my contribution was rum cake, from my Hawaiian friend’s recipe and my Cuban rum.