'What a gift it is to have women who are honest, straight-forward,
physically healthy and over the age of seventy in our lives,
they give us hope, courage and guidance for our path ahead.'
anonymous
After my post on our bookclub, Chania over at Razmataz, commented that when she had been looking for a bookclub to join and finally found one, she wasn't allowed in because they had this ridiculous stipulation of only wanting women members under the age of 35! I am proud to say that our bookclub has two women in it who are over the age of 80. They are vibrant, intelligent and all of the above, but most of all they inspire us with their wisdom.
Katherine Govier: In Praise of Older Women
You do hear, in publishing circles, the occasional complaint that the audience is “graying”. Yep, it is. It is also loyal, intelligent, informed, crazy about Canada, opinionated, and not going anywhere. These women have years of reading ahead of them. They will not be switching their allegiance to video games or social media. They will read, and discuss what they read, as long as they have eyes in their head.
Amen to that Victoria! Well said!
ReplyDeleteI belonged to a Book Club in Australia similar to yours and it was wonderful. Their experiences enriched the discussions and boy oh boy were stories to tell. I miss that group, it was special and more so because of we had such wide and varying interests and experiences.
Jeanne xx
Brilliant post ! I totally agree !
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Jacqueline. I frown on exclusion of any kind. As an avid reader, especially of Canadian literature, I pass my beloved books to my daughter and her friends and then we chat about them.
ReplyDeleteThe group I didn't join missed out on me rambling about Larry's Party and my favourite part of the book when he puts his hands into his jacket pocket and realizes he has the wrong jacket. I even went to the play and Carol Shields was in the audience shortly before she died. Give me an author over a celebrity any day.
I read the article V. and this jumped out at me:
ReplyDeleteBut something happened. The thrill went out of it, for a whole generation. How did we fail to engage the forty year olds? What about the twenty-five year olds?
I'm not sure she's correct here - every 25-40 year old I know reads. Some now, however are downloading their books to their Kindles or IPads, so they don't show up at book-signings. Their time is more divided and this age category is a physically-active one...reading is a passive past-time.
I'm not ready to give up on this group yet. Need to chat with my girls about this. Good post Sis!
Cheers to you for posting this! I will be 70 next year ... enjoy reading, discussions, current events, film, theater and on and on and on!
ReplyDeleteThis "graying" member of the audience will be reading until they pull the book from my hands. Actual books and newspapers, no e-readers for me. Our 19 yo daughter is also an avid reader.
ReplyDelete...AND, I love her hair!
ReplyDeleteWonderful post! Those silly young bookclub girls don't know what they're missing!!
ReplyDeletexo J~
What a lovely post!
ReplyDelete