Reading Lots of
Candles, Plenty of Cake this month gave us insight into Pulitzer-Prize—winning
author Anna Quindlen. The book is Quindlen’s memoir about her marriage, family,
and career from her college days to close to her retirement from the New York
Times but while she was still writing books, which she is still doing.
As the blogger for the Book Discussion Group as well as the member
who nominated the book and ran the meeting, I was unable to take my usual style
of notes during the discussion, complete with full arguments on topics from all
interested members and listings of who said what. Thus, this post will be
slightly loose and full of holes.
I opened the discussion with a batch of quotes from the book,
which I had highlighted on my Kindle. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get a
single list of these highlighted quotes, and I had to travel through the book
to find each quote I had marked. Quindlen’s excellent writing style and witty comments
made the quotes attractive, and the conversation brought forth other quotes
that members had noticed when they had read the book. The quotes by themselves
were interesting, perhaps because of Quindlen’s ability to turn a phrase; I
thought the quotes our members chose were interesting as they reflected members’
attitudes and experiences reading the book. This all made me feel that
highlighting or choosing quotes is a good way to prepare for a book discussion!
The death of Quindlen’s 40-year-old mother when Quindlen was 19
gave Quindlen some gravitas and perspective on life. Wise beyond her years, she
valued the good times in her life, perhaps more than many young adults do, because
her mother lost her life so early. Quindlen
also understood how important a mother can be to adult children, as she missed
her mother a lot as she matured and had a family of her own.
Quindlen’s passages about her Catholic upbringing rang true with some
Book Club members. One commented that Catholic childhood can be traumatic.
Susan commented that a recovering Catholic will be recovering for life, and
Carla noted that older people’s feelings about church seem to have commonality
with Quindlen’s feelings. As Quindlen aged, she became less apt to attend church
regularly but remained respectful of religion’s role in life.
One question that Cindy T. asked was whether we all thought this
was a good book to recommend to a friend who had not had any children, and a
similar question had occurred to me so that I’d written it down in my notes. My
question was whether members would recommend this book to a daughter who is
pregnant or has children. The lively discussion following these questions had a
variety of conflicting answers!
This was a rewarding discussion of an artistically written book
and was rewarding to me as the nominator presenter of the book. Joanne’s chocolate
cake added to the experience! I thought it was a fun meeting and discussion!
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