The January meeting of Wine and Words was held at Jan’s. Everyone attended but Linda. Jan served a rice dish, lemon chicken, a great strawberry salad and ice cream sundaes.

Karen read and recommends: Ecstasy: A Novel 

Educated was recommended again. This is the third time this book has been recommended by members. It is not currently on our reading list.

We discussed The Year of Magical Thinking and most of the members did not enjoy the book and felt it was long and depressing. However, we discussed why people might have enjoyed reading it.  Anne said the book helped her understand a friend’s grieving process. Cindy liked the book because it helped her understand some of the grief she has experienced since her father died. Jody mentioned the author was a respected member of the literary community who put her experience out there for the world to see, which is hard to do. Kay said she likes to choose books that have some redeeming value. Sandie said that Linda had previously mentioned to her that perhaps December was not the right time to read a dark and depressing novel. Some of us wondered if our age range made it difficult for us to read because it hit too close to home since we are loosing so many of our close friends and family members.

We spent the rest of the meeting sharing our recent travels. Kay had been to Israel, Cindy to Egypt, Sandie and Linda to Australia, Karen and Ann to Europe. We shared our memories of our trips and also talked about future travel wishes. Anne wants to go to Croatia. Someone said they want to go to Quebec City. Sandie said that a cruise up the East Coast and then down the St. Lawrence would be fun.

Our next meeting is scheduled to be at Linda’s on Feb. 25th at 5:30 PM. The book for discussion is Rules for Visiting.