Deja Vu

Years ago, I was having dinner at a friend’s house, when I saw a flyer on her refrigerator for a book group. I thought the list of books looked good, and I was excited at the idea of getting together with people to discuss them. “Hey,” I asked, “Can I join this?” Another woman standing behind me, not yet my good friend, said, “Yes, I’d like to as well.” We were both invited to join, but we had to read Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits in a few days. The other woman managed to finish; I did not. But both of us were members of that group until we moved. It was a good book group, not the kind people make fun of. We always discussed the book. One of the standards for choosing books was that they be challenging. There was good food and drink. And it was a good community of support made up of women from different disciplines.

This week a friend said she had an extra ticket to go see Allende at the Fitzgerald on Friday night. I’m not sure if I’m just going to the reading, or to my friend’s book group meeting too, but they’re on two different books. Allende is speaking for the Talking Volumes group on her newest novel, Ines of my Soul. But my friend’s book group read Zorro. So once again I find myself trying to cram in a lot of Allende in just a few days.

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