In the fall of 1993, Ruth and I were both in a book club that met at the library. It was a lovely group of women and not one of them, in the six months we attended, had ever read the book. They had read the jacket. They had read a review. One of them had seen the movie and felt this was the same thing. The discussion lasted eleven minutes and then it was about the school board.

So we left, and we started our own, and we made one rule, and the rule is in the name. Six years and seventy-one books later (seventy-one and a half; nobody finished Infinite Jest, and we have agreed never to speak of it), we are still eight, still meeting the third Thursday of the month at 7:30, and still, against all odds, reading the book.

This page is mostly for us: the list, the rules, whose house, and the discussion questions so the hostess stops losing the index card. But if you're thinking of starting your own club, help yourself to any of it. Especially the rules.

First names only, at everyone's request, and with each member's approved one-line description, which took longer to negotiate than most of our books.

We are not taking new members. We tried nine once. Nine is a mob.

Adopted October 1993, amended as needed, mostly after Incidents.

1. You read the book. All of it. "I got the gist" is not reading. Seeing the movie is not reading. Reading the jacket, the reviews, or your daughter's paper on it is not reading.
2. If you didn't finish, you may still come, and eat, and listen. You may not vote on next month's book, and you may not say "I heard it gets better." (Amended 1994, the Joanne Amendment. She was on a double shift and we were unkind.)
3. The first forty-five minutes are about the book. Not the kids, not the husbands, not the school board, not the woman at church. After forty-five minutes, or the second glass of wine, whichever is first, the floor is open.
4. The hostess picks the book two months ahead, so everyone has time. It must be available in paperback or at the library. (Amended 1995. Hardcovers add up.)
5. No book over 500 pages between Thanksgiving and New Year's. (Amended December 1996. See Infinite Jest. Do not see Infinite Jest.)
6. Nobody says "I just didn't relate to the characters" without saying why. This is a full sentence rule. "I didn't relate to him because he was a horse thief and I'm a dental hygienist" is acceptable.
7. The hostess brings five questions on an index card. She may use the ones in the back of the paperback. She should be ashamed of it, but she may.
8. Nobody has to like the book. But you have to have read it to hate it. See Rule 1.
9. No book may be picked twice. Except by unanimous vote, which has happened exactly once, for Beloved, and it was worth it.
10. What is said at book club stays at book club. With the exception of this page, which everyone has approved, mostly.

Picked by the hostess for that month, with the club's verdict in one line once we've met. Verdicts are by majority. The minority is welcome to write her own page.

Past years' lists are in a spiral notebook in my kitchen drawer. Typing them in is on the list. Someday.

Thursday, October 21, 7:30, at Ruth's. Barbara Kingsolver, 1998. Linda has four library copies on hold for us; ask her before you buy one. It's the story of a Baptist missionary, Nathan Price, who hauls his wife and four daughters from Georgia to a village in the Belgian Congo in 1959, right before the country's independence, and it is told entirely by the women: Orleanna, the mother, and the four girls, Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May. Nathan never gets a word in. That's on purpose.

Ruth's questions, typed up so she can't lose the card. (We discuss the whole book. If you haven't finished, Rule 2 applies, and also you will be spoiled, and also read faster.)

1. Five narrators, and the father, the one whose decision drives everything, is never one of them. What does the book gain by keeping Nathan on the outside? Would you have wanted his side? Ruth says no. Priya says yes. Go.
2. Each daughter has a voice you could pick out with the name torn off: Rachel and her mangled vocabulary, Adah and her palindromes and reading backwards, Leah's earnestness, Ruth May's five-year-old plainness. Which one did you trust? Which one changed your mind about her by the end?
3. The title comes from Nathan's mispronunciation: in the village's language, the same word said slightly differently means "precious" or "poisonwood," so he ends his sermons announcing that Jesus is the poisonwood tree. How many of the book's disasters come down to people who won't listen?
4. Kingsolver sets the family's story against the real Congo of 1960, independence and what came after. Did the history pull you out of the family's story or deepen it? Did any of you know this history before? (Be honest. Rule 1 applies to the afterword too.)
5. Orleanna's sections are addressed to someone, and we don't know who for a long time. Once you knew, did you go back and reread them? How does the book handle guilt, and who does it decide is actually guilty?

Food: Carla is making groundnut stew, which is a peanut stew, and Bev is bringing fried plantains, and Ruth, as hostess, is providing "something from Georgia" and will not say what. Toni: red and white.

The rotation is alphabetical-ish and we've stopped pretending it's alphabetical. Whoever hosts picks the book, brings the questions, and provides the main snack. Everyone else brings one thing. Toni brings the wine because Toni's brother-in-law owns a liquor store and we are not proud.

The Snack Rule: food from the book is encouraged, not required. Highlights of the policy so far: Carla's Newfoundland seal-flipper pie (it was chicken; she said it was chicken; we chose to believe her) for The Shipping News; corn bread and greens for A Lesson Before Dying; and a truly enormous amount of Louisiana food in August, after which we voted to move Toni's month to a lighter book next year. For The Hours, I made the birthday cake Laura Brown can't get right. Twice. Very much in the spirit of the book.

Lowlights: the year somebody (Bev) served hardtack and cold coffee for a Civil War novel "for authenticity." Rule 8 does not cover snacks. We have discussed adding it.

Can I join? No, and it's not personal. See "nine is a mob," above. But start your own; it takes two people and one rule.

Do you really all finish the book every month? Every month, no. Most months, yes. The point isn't a perfect record; the point is that you show up having tried, and if you didn't finish, you say so and you listen. What we don't do is pretend. Pretending is how the other club died.

Can I have your discussion questions? Yes. That's why they're here. I'll be adding the questions from earlier this year as I find the index cards, which are in three different purses.

Do your husbands mind? Ruth's husband would like it known that the third Thursday is the best night of his month. He gets the TV.

What was the best book you've read in six years? We took a vote for this page and it came out a four-way tie and then a fight, so: no comment. Ask us individually. Bring wine.