Book Club Break-Up

Today's guest blogger is Karen Dulak, who discusses how her book club unexpectedly disbanded, the new reading group she has joined, and some of the most memorable books she's read and discussed. Karen lives near the banks of the Mississippi River in Winona, Minnesota, with her husband, two kids, and a big orange cat named Cheeto. She loves to read, and when she isn't reading she is searching for something to read. Karen is a contributing columnist for the Winona Daily News.


Belonging to a book club is an intimate affair. Without the proper guidelines for the entire group to adhere to, tragedy can strike. This is the case with the first book group I belonged to. One member invited a friend to join our group without consent and that marked the beginning of the end for our club. The new person was rude to an existing member and harshly corrected her analogy of an event in the current book we had read. After that night, I had several calls from members very unhappy that this new person was now a part of our community.

Like a marriage that suffers from an extramarital affair and falls apart, our club slowly and painfully broke up. It was a hard thing to experience as we had had a great run and discussed a wide variety of books within the time we had been together. I was asked to join a new club about a year ago. I was so happy to be welcomed into a new book club again because it's hard to gain entrance into an existing book group that's been hanging together for a while. Some of the most memorable book discussions I've been a part of, however, were books I read with the first club I belonged to.

We read a lot of great books, but two really stick out in my memory. The first is Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. We held our discussion on a dark and cold February night at a cafe. The discussion that evening became one about death, and we talked very openly and honestly about it. I will never forget my friend Nancy talking about when she was newly married, and had learned she had ovarian cancer and that she and her husband, Dave, braced themselves for the worst. She told our group that it was true that the flowers smelled sweeter, the colors in the world were brighter in those months, and that she and her husband were never closer than when she thought she was going to die. Although the discussion was heavy, we were all thankful for the opportunity to talk about the subject and thankful that Nancy shared her story with us. We mortals tend to forget that dying is a part of living.

We chose an easy book to read during a December meeting several years ago. Someone suggested we read, or re-read, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. With the holidays upon us, it seemed feasible to quickly finish this small familiar paperback from our pre-pubescent youth. Going back and reading that book was like meeting an old childhood friend again. We laughed about the bust-enhancing exercises and could all remember distinctly the middle school health talks about menstruation and bringing home a kit with a pad the size of a brick and a sanitary belt. Judy made us all feel normal about our changing bodies. I remember longing to get my period when I was twelve; now I just long for it to end. A new book called Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume is now available with contributions from Jennifer O'Connell, Meg Cabot and Beth Kendrick to name a few. It's a great read for Judy Blume fans and a wonderful trip down memory lane.

My first book club smoked candy cigarettes when we discussed Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, we shared prom photos when we talked about The Cheerleader, and we went to see the film version of Bridget Jones's Diary in our PJs. We always had great food, great conversations and a lot of laughter. We loved discussing a wonderful book and tolerated those that were just mediocre because what we cared about the most was time with each other.


---Karen Dulak