As an international teacher, I sometimes struggle to find friends who are not international teachers. My teacher friends are great, don’t get me wrong, but I also love to learn the stories of interesting people with experiences quite different from my own.
That’s why I felt particularly fortunate to join a small book club in New Delhi comprising a diverse group of fascinating ladies – a nurse, an actress, a scientist, a dancer … and more. We met monthly to discuss and recommend (or not) whatever each of us had read recently, and we maintained a lending library of books donated by the group. Occasionally, we joined a few other ladies for a dramatic reading of a play. Although their husbands’ jobs brought them to Delhi and, unfortunately, took them away again last year, these women all left their marks on the community and on my heart. I have missed the camaraderie, reflective conversations and laughter.
In fact, I don’t think I realized how much I missed them until a plan was hatched to hold a summer reunion. Not everyone could make it, but a few of us did, and we had a wonderful time hanging out at Sue’s home in artsy-fartsy Door County, Wisconsin, June 25-28. Sue’s husband is presently working in Afghanistan with the U.S. Agency for International Development while she settles into their retirement home (which they bought sight unseen while living in India). The house sits high on a hill overlooking Lake Michigan with a steep staircase leading down to the wooded waterfront. It was idyllic.
Each morning, we lounged poolside with coffee and breakfast treats, re-connecting and catching up. Over the four days, we also walked to the Edgewood Orchard Galleries, where I bought a sculpture for my own lake house; took a bumpy ride on Lake Michigan in a rented pontoon boat piloted by Sue’s son, Brent; participated in a dramatic reading of “Fences” by August Wilson; held an official book club meeting (see the book recommendations at the end of this post); and visited a food fair and an art show. Cocktails in hand, we returned to the backyard in the evenings to watch the sun set.
Adrienne, Catherine, Henrietta and I clambered down to the lakefront.
Brent deftly handled the pontoon boat on choppy water, steering us to glassy Horseshoe Bay, where we lingered for a picnic lunch.
Monique and Henri take the dogs out for a walk to the art gallery.
The gallery featured an art-lined path through the woods.
I bought this sculpture of an ibis, which the gallery shipped to our Michigan house. Here she is at Lake Orion.
We bought this fish for Sue as a thank-you gift.
Afternoon cocktails prepared by Adrienne!
Back to front, left to right: Monique, Adrienne, Sue, Henri, me, Catherine.
Catherine’s party pants.
Henri and me at Gills Rock, the tip of Wisconsin’s mitten thumb peninsula.
My motto.
Brent took a summer job at Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant, where he herds the goats off the sod roof at night.
Reading “Fences,” August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play about black Americans in the 1950s.
Sunset.
Here’s the list of books we discussed. Fiction and non-fiction, old and new … in no order.
Beautiful Ruins – Jess Walter
The Saffron Kitchen – Yasmin Crowther
Don’t Let Him Know– Sandip Roy
A Dog’s Gift – Bob Drury
The Martian – Andy Weir
The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life– Bettany Hughes
The Children Act – Ian McEwan
Squatting with Dignity – Kumar Alok
Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt – David McCullough
The Expats – Chris Pavone
Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave – Jennifer Fleischner
A House Divided – Pearl S. Buck
Imperial Woman: The Story of the Last Empress of China – Pearl S. Buck
The Child Who Never Grew – Pearl S. Buck
Various books by Leon Uris
Clara and Mr. Tiffany – Susan Vreeland
The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge – David McCullough
The Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy – Douglas Smith
The Lunar Chronicles – Marisa Meyer
The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson
In the Garden of the Beasts -Erik Larson
Thunderstruck – Erik Larson
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry – Gabrielle Zevin
I’ll Give you the Sun – Jandy Nelson
All the Light We Cannot See– Anthony Doerr
Catering to Nobody – Diane Mott Davidson
The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins
To be Sung Underwater – Tom McNeal
Wild – Cheryl Strayed
The Orphan Train – Christina Baker Kline
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking – Susan Cain
The Cherry Harvest – Lucy Sanna
The Passion of Artemesia – Susan Vreeland
FDR – Jean Edward Smith
We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of the American Women Trapped on Bataan – Elizabeth Norman
I Served on Bataan – Juanita Redmond
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
Until we meet again, happy reading!