The other night we had Book Club.
It was the night of the Oscars and we all sat around watching it, some of us so out of touch these days with the world of celebrity. Most of the faces flashing up were unknown to us. It was a good night of vibrant talk about, well, all sorts of things.
We discussed our book for about two minutes. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. A few of us had our hair in plaits. I did. We loved Anne of Green Gables. We all have the fondest memories of the 1980’s TV series starring the delightful Megan Follows as our protagonist. For a few of us though, we are now mothers with very talkative small people and so when we tried to read the book, we found ourselves feeling overwhelmed with the chatter of the girl. It is charming chatter to be sure. I love her whimsy however, I’d find my head hurting from the noise. Personally I also found her lack of following basic instructions to be a little frustrating as I battle this now. ‘Put your shoes on’…PUT YOUR SHOES ON!!!’… You know how it goes. Overall we are all massive fans. No question. I guess it is about the timing of when you would read this series.
On to our next read and we wanted something empowering to women, but something fresher, sharper, edgier. We were also inspired by The Oscars so we looked up the nominees for best screenplay adaptation. So our next book is The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith. This has been made into the movie Carol, staring the lovely Cate Blanchett. I found the last remaining copy in our local bookshop. I have started it, only a few pages in but already I am in love with the stunning narrative. A paragraph describing a woman’s hands is immaculate and I cannot wait to see where this story goes.