Bonded by books

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I just returned, over PCH’s roughshod road, from the Malibu Senior Center Aquarius Book Club. I am 69 years old, in good shape, in good health, and in a good family situation (at this moment) and actively engaged in life. Reading good books is one of my true loves. Discussing what I read enriches and broadens the experience. The book we analyzed today, in our one allocated hour, was “My Sister’s Keeper” by Jodi Picoult. Present was our group leader Veda in addition to Lavonia, a former English teacher, John, a former psychiatrist, and me. The books we choose all have an audible version because one of our members is visually impaired though she was absent.

As I looked around at our highly intelligent and vocal group of members, I thought this is Malibu and where is everybody? Does our foursome represent a decent percentage of Malibu residents over 55? Do people still read books? Do people want other points of view? Or, maybe people are not aware of our existence.

The discussion today was lively. The story is about family, crisis, fatal decisions, a rare form of leukemia, love, recognition, responsibility. In other words, the book is about life and how life happens to us and how we respond. All present had strong emotions evoked by this story. What would we have done? We ended up telling each other our stories and how we have dealt with loss and tragedy. We really bonded today and left the center feeling connected to each other in ways that were new to us in these monthly meetings. So it seems our group comes together not only to discuss books but life and more personally our lives for how else can we judge a book about other people’s lives.

Again, I wonder why more people were not there to get involved and connected the way the four of us did today-us lucky four!

Vivian Richman