Book Club, the novel adaptation
THIS WAS AN EXPERIENCE LET ME TELL YOU.
I roll on up at 6:55 for the 7pm book club. I walk in and there's an immediate flurry because my presence means we need another table. In point of fact, the new table added two seats and they were all filled by the in so whatever guys, you would have needed another table anyway.
I sit down and everybody is passing around these treats. There's no escaping Ernie's cornbread. He's VERY serious about the cornbread. But it's good cornbread so it's fine. But I successfully refused salami, mozzarella, oreos, milanos, some sort of ritz mix, and some chocolate covered mini cookies.
Mary comes in, wheeling in a book cart, upon which is a carafe of coffee, some paper cups and a pint of half and half. Another woman whose name I can't remember walks in right then and Mary pounces on her:
"Did you get my email??"
"No...? What was it about?"
"About coming at 6:30 so you could learn how to make the coffee."
"Oh," glances meaningfully at the clock where it says it's 7:02.
"GIVE ME YOUR PHONE NUMBER."
So we know Mary is a person to watch.
We're settling in and the last woman comes and sits next to me. She says to the person next to her, who is the one who was supposed to come at 6:30 but didn't, "I wonder if we can have decaf next time, I can't have caffeine this late."
The other woman addresses Mary, at the far end of the table. "Mary, Annette wants to know if we can have decaf next time."
"I'm sorry, I can't really hear you."
The message is passed up to Mary. Mary: "I just opened this container of coffee."
Annette's representative: "Well maybe we can get decaf next time?"
Mary: "Is that ok with everyone else? *I* don't drink coffee," (gestures meaningfully to her water bottle "so it doesn't matter to me."
Attention turns to the guy who leapt for the coffee as soon as it was wheeled in
Annette's representative: "I mean, we're all old. We shouldn't have caffeine this late anyway."
Silence.
Coffee guy: "I don't mind. I'll drink whatever's here."
Mary: "Well, the library provides the coffee."
Annette's representative: "But surely we could ask for decaf?"
Mary: "Except I think that they provide coffee for ALL the book clubs, so..."
Annette: "Oh, it doesn't matter, I can just bring my own drink."
Annette's representative: "Maybe we should just bring our own coffee. Coffee isn't that expensive."
Ernie: "We could run it like a club and take dues."
Mary: "Hahahahaha. Let's have the new people introduce themselves."
I fear Mary.
Anyway, it's me and another girl a little younger than me that are new. She moved her a year ago from San Jose. There were 16 people there, of which about 5 were in my general age demographic, another 3 were my parents age and the other 8 were my grandparent's age.
Ernie goes first, so I go last.
Ernie's book is about code breakers in WW2. This led to an amazeball side discussion between Ernie and Stan about their respective WW2 experiences (!) which took a long time for a book club that's supposed to be an hour and requires 16 people to give a book summary.
Then DeNell goes, she's talking about a thriller that she's only partway through.
Then Stan's wife goes. This woman is a retired physics professor, which is pertinent because this review makes her sound like an idiot. She's also had a stroke and is hard to understand but she goes for it.
Stan's wife: "Do you know how the amazon on the computer lets you have a sample of a book so you can decide if you want to buy it?" everyone nods. "Well, I got a sample of this book called The Master Algorithm and I wanted to read it because Stan and I watch this show, I don't know if any of you have ever seen it, it's called Numbers. It's about these two brothers and one is an FBI agent and the other is a math genius and the one brother gets all the cases and the other brother solves the cases using algorithms, and I wanted to know what an algorithm really was because I never had that in my math classes in school. So I read this sample and what I realized was I should have read the second part of the title which was the search for the algorithm that will unlock learning so it was about looking for a special algorithm and not what an algorithm is. What I learned was that I did not need to buy this book."
Silence.
Someone: "Did you read another book, then?"
Stan's wife: "No. I looked up what an algorithm is and I wanted to tell you because that's what I learned this month and also maybe no one else knows what an algorithm is either. What it is, is a set of instructions you give a computer. The example that I saw that made the most sense to me was doing the laundry. Doing the laundry is an algorithm because you decide if something is a white or not, and if it's a white it goes to the whites, and if it's not it goes with the darks."
Silence.
Then Stan talked about his book, a murder mystery set in the Shetlands.
Mary finally started reading the Agatha Raisin books. But because I fear Mary I do not mention that they go downhill pretty fast from where she's at.
The next lady talks about a book about a woman who went to Syria before the war on a Fullbright to study the Koran, and this is the sequel she read, about her life in Jerusalem with her Syrian husband and their child.
Then Paige, the other new girl, talks about a book she read that was historical fiction set during the Irish Potato Famine. She says, "I had no idea the English were so culpable for that, refusing to provide aid."
I nod because I've read some of that history and that's right.
Stan: "But didn't the Irish refuse help from other countries?"
Silence.
Stan: "I know that England didn't help but other countries offered to help and Ireland refused, right?"
Paige: "I can't imagine why, when they had so many people starving to death."
Stan: "I'll look it up."
Me: side-eyes Stan. I choose not to remind him to cite his sources.
Lois: "I should probably pass because I read two books and then I decided which one I would talk about and I put the other one away, and then when I got ready today I couldn't find the one I wanted to bring, and I don't remember the title or the author. It was ok."
I almost DIED.
Her husband read this book about the guy who created the Ultima video games. He went on and on and wasn't interesting.
The next guy is the coffee enthusiast, and he read a history of Scotland from 1700-2000, and he gives a ton of detail. Too much, because it's already past 8pm and there's 5 of us left.
The next guy read a book called "Hope Never Dies" an Obama/Biden murder mystery. I laughed out loud.
The next lady says, I should probably pass, I'm almost halfway through Lady Chatterley's Lover but I'll probably be done with it by next month.
And then there's an 8 minute discussion of it vs Bridges of Madison County and whether she should try to continue reading another book her mom gave her for Christmas.
The next woman is Annette's coffee advocate and she read a historical fiction book about an Iranian woman poet who had to live out her life in exile and there was some scandal about her romantic poems and between that more explicit than expected discussion and the conversation about Lady Chatterley's Lover, I have to tell you, I'm full up on my quota of minutes spent discussing sex with random octogenarians.
Then Annette goes and she talks about some random thriller she picked up and then says, "Sometimes I read more and sometimes I read less and lately I'm reading less so I'm also going to recommend a TV show that I've been watching. It's mysteries set in a modern day western setting, which I normally avoid westerns but it's very good, and it's based on a series of books, it's called Longmire. I haven't read the books and I don't want to because I like the show so much but I'm sure they're good."
Buddy: "They are!"
Annette: "And the library has the DVDs so you can get them here."
Stan: "They're streamable, too, I don't know if they're on Netflix or Prime but it's one of those."
Annette: "I don't do the streaming anymore, I only get the CDs because the streaming doesn't have enough old stuff but I like to get the TV shows from the library because you can get an entire season at a time instead of just one disc."
And then I went and it was over.