Book Club

One of the many pleasures in my life is reading.  I don't know what I would do if I couldn't read.  Seriously.  WHAT WOULD I DO?  I remember one night last summer when I couldn't find my glasses.  I was just about to go to bed and I discovered that I didn't have my glasses perched on the top of my head.  I searched everywhere for the darned things.  I almost had a panic attack.  Get out the Ativan!  (I finally found them where I had left them sitting out on the railing of the back deck.)

Anyways.  I love reading.  It is a major component of my life.

So you can imagine my delight when I was asked to join a book club!  

The year was 1997.  I was a busy woman back then.  My kids were 10, 8 and 5 years old; I was teaching Grade One full-time; I was a Girl Guide leader AND the Squamish District Commissioner of Guiding; I was an avid gardener and a member of the local gardening club.

Did I have time to belong to a book club?  Could I read a book every month and be prepared to discuss it?  You bet I could!

Going to see Jan Wong ('Beijing Confidential') in 2009.

Joining that book club has been one of the best things that has happened to me since moving to Squamish.  The women have become good friends, I've read amazing (and some not-so-amazing) books over the years,  I've eaten fabulous dinners, drank delicious wines and have participated in some incredible (and some not-so-incredible) book discussions, and met brilliant authors.

We were happy to sit on the hard floor to listen to Lawrence Hill read from his novel 'The Book of Negroes' in 2009.

We love to get the authors to sign our books.  Lawrence Hill generously obliges.

We often have the final meeting of the year in my garden. 
May 2009.

I think I have only missed one or two book club meetings over the past 14 years.  Spending an evening with these women is a highlight of my month.  I love when I step into someone's home on a Tuesday night and hear happy chatter above clinking wine glasses.

We had to sit so far back in Christ Church Cathedral that we couldn't even see Ian McEwen ('Atonement', 'Saturday').  We just pretended that we were listening to him over the radio as he read from 'Solar'.

In my garden, June 2010.

Me and my gals.  (Photo credit to Liz Scott.)


I have learned so much from this caring, fun-loving group of women.  We laugh, we cry, we support each other in our struggles, we celebrate each others' accomplishments.

Meeting Elizabeth Hay ('Late Nights On Air', 'Alone In The Classroom')
May 2011. 

Meeting Miriam Toews ('A Complicated Kindness', 'The Flying Troutmans', 'Irma Voth')
May 2011.


These women make me think.

I love reading.