Reading a wonderful novel can transport you anywhere in the world….and it’s even more enjoyable when the trip is shared with friends. This is one of the main reasons book clubs thrive, despite the challenges we sometimes face.

An ongoing issue is what book to choose. There are so many approaches–some groups let the host decide; some decide as a group; some limit their reading to fiction or non-fiction; some even ‘cook the book’ and eat according to the novel’s theme.

Regardless of approach, we love reading together.

One of our book clubs picks a theme each year and decides on all of the novels at the end of our season. In the past we have read contemporary fiction, African-American and southern, and this past year we chose prize-winning authors (we always try to find balance between the genders).

We are very excited about next year’s theme: international authors. We worked hard to find eight of the best books from around the world and chose the following:

• To The End of the Land by David Grossman (Israel)
• Fiasco by Irme Kertesz (Hungary)
• Hate by Tristan Garcia (France)
• Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes(Great Britain)
• The Messenger by Yannick Haenel (France)
• Last Man in Tower by Arivind Adiga (India)
• The Hunger Angel by Herta Muller (Germany)
• A Sport of Nature by Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)

Violence is the common hell of all who are associated with it.  –The House Gun

What happens when an upper-middle class, white South African family becomes the victim of violence? What happens when that violence is perpetuated by a member of their own family? How do a successful, community-minded physician and her religious, corporate husband cope when they discover that their only son, an architect, committed murder? And last, how do they deal with their son’s selection of a black man in post-apartheid South Africa to represent him? These questions form the core of Nadine Gordimer’s extraordinary novel, The House Gun, a must-read for smart women.

Our group wrestled with these issues last night at our monthly meeting, and the conversation was spirited.  Much of the discussion centered on the difficulties Claudia and Harald faced coming to terms with the truth about their son, Duncan. Not only does he murder one of his roommates, they discover that Duncan’s act was a crime of passion committed when he discovered his girlfriend and ex-male lover having sex on their communal sofa. (By the way, this is not a spoiler. All this is revealed in the opening pages of the novel.)

Much of how they deal with this painful tragedy reflects their sense of personal responsibility, wondering where they might have gone wrong. Their guilt is compounded by the post-apartheid world in which they live and their response to Duncan’s lawyer Hamilton Motsamai. While trying to wrap their heads around the news that shattered their life, they also confront their biases. “She’s (Claudia) not one of those doctors who touch black skin indiscriminately along with white, but retain liberal prejudices against the intellectual capacities of blacks. Yet she is questioning, and he is; in the muck in which they are stewing now, where murder is done, old prejudices still writhe to the surface.”

We were so dazzled by Gordimer’s writing and subject matter that we added A Sport of Nature to our 2012-2013 reading list. If you haven’t discovered this Nobel Prize winning author, then don’t wait any longer. There are many rewards to be found on her pages. This book that was unanimously applauded by our reading group, and we are certain it will be well-received by yours as well.

(By the way, discussion questions can be found under “Other Smart Reads.”)

If you’ve been reading the news these last few days, then you are aware of the brouhaha over the failure to award a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. No one doubts that there must have been at least one worthy novel (we can think of a few), yet the controversy is interesting.

Ann Patchett is upset with the Pulitzer committee and writes, “Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings.”

This is true, and smart women are aware of this. We also know that when a book is honored with a prize (Booker, Pulitzer, National Book Award), this doesn’t necessarily mean that we agree that it was the right choice or that we want to read it. It is just a guidepost indicating what has been recognized and we may want to consider it.

But, the good news is that numerous titles have been floated in the press as potential contenders. This gives us the chance to explore what may not have been on our literary radar. We will definitely look into Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, Russell Banks’ Lost Memory of Skin, and Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones. Another well-received 2012 title, The Art of Fielding, is already on our list and will be the subject of a forthcoming blog.

Although Patchett concludes, “The Pulitzer Prize is our best chance as writers and readers and booksellers to celebrate fiction,” a prize isn’t necessarily what creates a buzz about a new book. Fifty Shades of Grey is the hottest (no pun intended) book at the moment, and surely it won’t be a finalist for the Pulitzer.

Annie Dillard wrote, “At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then–and only then–it is handed to you.” Writers, both male and female, know this. The process can be a mean, exhausting task, but it’s part of the job description.

Interestingly enough, Dillard does not discriminate between male and female authors in The Writing Life; on the contrary, she draws liberally on the experiences of all writers as she describes their sometimes grueling challenges. Nonetheless, many smart women readers seek balance in their authors, trying to spend equal time with writers from both genders.

One of our reading groups this year made a conscious decision to read only prize winning authors, eight in all, four men and four women. We are nearing the end of our journey with only Nadine Gordimer left on the roster, and none of our women disappointed us (Didion, Sontag, and Oates were the others). So, when we read Meg Wolitzer’s essay, “The Second Shelf: Are there different rules for men and women in the world of literary fiction?” we took note of her questions.

Wolitzer begins her essay by asking: “If The Marriage Plot had been written by a woman yet still had the same title and wedding ring on its cover, would it have received a great deal of serious literary attention?” It’s a good question, but considering that Eugenides draws on Jane Austen, a women writer who is taken seriously, it’s hard to answer anything but ‘yes.’ And if you have read Amy Waldman’s The Submission or Nicole Krauss’s History of Love or Great House (just to name a few recent titles), then you know that there are serious, well-received contemporary women authors.

Yet, Wolitzer makes an interesting point: “The top tier of literary fiction–where the air is rich and the view is great and where a book enters into the public imagination and current conversation–tends to feel peculiarly, disproportionately male.” What do you think? Is there a gender bias in literary fiction and how a work is received? Let us hear from you.

Smart women love to read, and our solitary reading experiences are enhanced when we discuss literature as a community. While we explore fundamentals such as character, theme, plot and style, our conversations really come to life when we examine an author’s attitude toward his or her subject.

In two powerful, incisive short stories, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank,” Raymond Carver and Nathan Englander respectively give us startling, provocative views of love and marriage. These works expose a truth about the most intimate of relationships—that while they can be deeply satisfying, there are also unspoken, darker understandings that surface under certain circumstances (and these authors create the precise situations for these to unfold).

What we might suggest as a book club ‘assignment’ would be to read these two stories side by side and ask why Englander chooses to build a story upon Carver’s theme and structure. He follows Carver’s patterns quite closely with a clear intention. Your group can consider:

• What are the similarities and differences between the two?
• What are the authors saying, and what does Englander add to Carver’s classic story?
• How do they present the ideas of love and marriage, and how are these emotions tied up with issues of power, control, and the ‘truth’?

What we think you might discover is that what we talk about when we talk about books is also much more complex than just what is on the page. As many women will attest, we learn so much about one another through our explorations of fiction that it is impossible to limit our discussion to the book even when we discipline ourselves to stay on the topic. Infused in every comment about a text is a smart woman’s point of view, which reveals who she is, what she believes, and where she stands. This is the heart and soul of a book club.

So, take a look at the Carver and Englander. See what you think about these couples sitting around a table draining bottles of gin and vodka (and in Englander’s story, smoking a fair amount of pot). What happens when they loosen their collars a bit and get into the hard facts of life and love? And ultimately, how are we transformed by our own talks about books?

Perhaps there’s a story here.