APW Book Club

Jul 2010

The Reveal

So, a few weeks ago when we were discussing, well, marriage, the amazing research of John Gottman came up (hint: go listen to this episode of This American Life if you haven’t already). John Gottman has a book The Seven Principals of Making Marriage Work, that clearly we all need to read, so Liz announced that it was time for a REAL APW book club.

Well. Cue me nodding my head, and writing down the name of the book. The thing was, when I got to our local bookstore, I just couldn’t do it. Not… in July. Not… heading out for vacation. I kept trying to imagine putting The Seven Principals of Making Marriage Work into a bag to take to the beach, and, um, no dice. So. I decided to shelve that for a more studious time of year, but clearly, the time was now for the APW book club.

So. The first book for the official APW book club? Get excited….. because it’s The Commitment by Dan Savage. You’re welcome! One of the quotes on the back cover (which is about The Kid, but is true for this book as well) says, “This is a book that reads like light entertainment but actually proves to be a deeply political, sensitive, and wise reordering of the entire notion of family values.” Which is kind of what we’re all about, no?

I bought The Commitment back when it first came out, and actually went to a book reading where Dan Savage was verbally insulted by a crazy person, and I have lots of good things to say about this book. Plus, I pulled it off my shelf last week to give it a look over, and am now on page 77, because I couldn’t stop re-reading, even in my over stressed brain addled state. This book is TOTALLY going to the beach with me.

What you should know about this book:

It’s about Dan Savage and his partner (and their six year old son) deciding if gay marriage was for them (and obviously I’m not going to give the answer away).
It’s about totally considering and re-considering what marriage is, and if it’s worth it, and why we do it.
Dan Savage will push your buttons. And of course, I f*cking LOVE that about him.

So. Yes. Here is the big reveal: Continue reading The Reveal

Posted in: APW Book Club, Events | 136 Comments »

Sep 2010

APW Book Club Questions: Dan Savage’s The Commitment

Ladies! And a few gentleman!

It’s that time. It’s first ever APW book-club meetup time, in 32 cities around the world, tomorrow (crazy, right?) So, with your help, I’ve compiled a list of starter questions for discussing Dan Savage’s The Commitment. Use them as ice breakers, don’t use them at all, use them for the whole party, use the book as a coaster and just drink. Do what you will. But I’m exceedingly excited to think about all the funny and smart women that you’ve always been told don’t exist, meeting up ALL OVER THE WORLD, discussing marriage equality tomorrow. Efffff. Awesome.

A few notes on the meetup. I’d love if you sent me run downs of how things went, but please put “APW Book-club meetup your city” in the title, and please try to send just one(ish) email per city (I’m just one person, after all!) If you take pictures, upload them to the brand new APW flickr group, with a note as to what city the picture was taken in. I will write up the meet-ups and start an online discussion of the book next week.

So, blah-blah-blah. Now, on to what you really want. The book club questions (linked to topical posts, for cross-reference and research purposes, of course). It will be just like your best seminar class in college, but with a lot more wine. I hope. What can I say? I’m ambitious.

Savage puts out a bunch of different arguments for and against getting married. Which did you identify with most? Was this something that factored into your decision to get married?
If you could approach marriage with a blank slate, ie, taking even monogamy and till-death-do-us-part out of the picture, what definition would you create? Why?
Savage addresses fidelity/monogamy, and the need for couples to be up front with each other about it. Is a marriage defined by monogamy? Should it be?
The book posits that successful marriages that sometimes have expiration dates. Do you agree? Why or why not?
What does the use of the terms husband and/or wife indicate? Is it good? Bad? Does it matter?
In the book, Savage grapples with how modern US society’s definition of marriage (gender prescriptive, restrictive, done by straight people) influences his desire, or rather his lack of desire, to be married. How does your personal view of marriage relate to what you see as society’s view of marriage? How does this affect the choices you make about your partnership?
To what extent does the way that your government constructs marriage make you think differently about getting married and being married? (Including but by no means limited to the issue of gay marriage.)
If the book came with an *exactly!* button, which passage would you choose?
Would you kill your partner if they insisted you take a cross country road trip with a small child or a dog?

Oh, and have f*cking FUN!

Meg

Posted in: APW Book Club, Events | 19 Comments »

Sep 2010

APW Meetups – The Pictures!

How did the meetups go? Well. As far as I can tell from the emails and photos, they went pretty d*mn well. Here is what we learned:

More people will RSVP than show, but by and large it won’t matter because the people who show will be awesome.
If you’re having a small meetup, get each others cell phone number so you can be SURE they’ll show, and not leave you feeling sad and lonely. (Sorry Nashville!!)
Get ready to stay for four hours, since EVERY book club seems to have lasted that long. Except Dallas. They lasted six hours. No joke. They were drinking beer the whole time, and then your erstwhile moderater Alyssa had everyone sign the book, and left it for the waiter with the tip.
If you’re at a book club with me, don’t tell me lots of nice things in front of everyone. Then I’ll start blushing and hide under the couch with a glass of wine. And I NEVER blush. Though I do drink lots of wine.
APW readers like each other. Like, “I never have good girlfriends and hot damn I loved those women.”
And that we’ll be having more meetups, you DEMAND it. Next book will be, by popular demand, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed (it’s good, people, I’ve read it.) And we’ll organize those late October/ early November meetups soon!

And now for a selection of the pictures (you can see all of them at APW’s Flickr page):

San Francisco, by Emily Takes Photos. They are laughing at my jokes because they are nice.

San Francisco, by Emily Takes Photos. We can be serious too. Continue reading APW Meetups – The Pictures!

Posted in: APW Book Club, Events | 93 Comments »

Sep 2010

APW Book Club: Dan Savage’s The Commitment, Round I

It’s tough to figure out where to start this discussion about Dan Savage’s The Commitment. I really liked the book in 2005, when it came out. But re-reading it as a married person, I loved it. I started crying during Dan’s mothers “scene-stealing, show stopping speech about love and commitment that should be entered into the Congressional Record” (Thanks Ira Glass, for that pull-quote.) And even David, eternal critic of books that I like, stopped reading the book last night to tell me how touching a scene between Dan and his six-year-old son was. And trust me, that never happens.

I figure we’ll discuss the book this week and next, because there is so much content in it (and next week will probably just be a free for all). As the cuttingly smart AGirl said in her cheaters-early-review of the book, “From a relatively circumscribed starting point, it sweeps out to touch on all manner of entirely universal issues in the most wonderfully disarming way.”

So when I stopped to think about what topic in this book fascinated me the most, it’s not actually gay marriage. What endlessly fascinates me about this book is be summed up in this question:

In the book, Savage grapples with how modern US society’s definition of marriage (gender prescriptive, restrictive, done by straight people) influences his desire, or rather his lack of desire, to be married. How does your personal view of marriage relate to what you see as society’s view of marriage? How does this affect the choices you make about your partnership? Continue reading APW Book Club: Dan Savage’s The Commitment, Round I

Posted in: APW Book Club, Events, Reclaiming Wife | 94 Comments »

Oct 2010

APW Book Club: Committed (If Women Like it, It Must be Stupid)

So, those of you who pay attention to the APW comment box know that I’ve said we’re going to read Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Committed” as the next APW book club selection. I, honestly, had been trying to avoid this selection. As a matter of fact, I’d been trying to avoid the whole book. The minute it hit publisher friends desks during the review period, *everyone* told me that I had to read it. When it finally came out, I would walk into bookstores and feel like it was staring at me. I’d think, “Yeah, I get it, I write about marriage, I’m not going to read this to relax, no way.”

Then in the spring, we were in New York on vacation, and I got sick, and I gave in. I bought it to read in bed. And it was really good. Was it the most brilliant book ever written? No. Were there, as the reviews pointed out, major structural problems? Yes. Was it a thoughtful discussion of what marriage is, and can be, from an author with a really strong, really likable voice? Yes. Did I like it? Yes, very much.

And then you guys started asking for it to be the book club selection over and over in the comments. And then I quoted Elizabeth Gilbert talking about the “Auntie Brigade,” and you guys cried all over the comments. So I got it, and we’re reading it. Done.

But before we do, I wanted to take on the boogie man behind the curtain – Eat, Pray, Love. I read EPL when it first started going viral. I didn’t love it. I didn’t HATE it, mind you, but I was surprised by how mostly unmoved I was. But I got why people did like it, and I was happy it was inspiring so many women, and I moved on.

But this fall, since the movie came out, the Eat, Pray, Love backlash went into full effect, mostly among women. Suddenly, whenever I brought up Elizabeth Gilbert’s name, women went nuts. Her writing was un-intelligent, she wrote a chick flick, her advance paid for her travels, she was Not A Serious Person. And then I started to get mad. Sure. I didn’t love Eat, Pray, Love. But I also knew that Gilbert was super smart and super accomplished. She gave a TED talk that is deeply brilliant. Because of her early books she was nominated for a National Book award, she’s been a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Prize, she’s had a New York Times “Notable Book.” And she worked her way up, on her own merits, not on her connections. (And she went to NYU, thank you very much.)

So what was going on? Why were women writing her off as dumb? Then Danielle of Knotty Yarn linked to an article about the phenomenon, “If women like it, it must be stupid.” And I got it. I got it not on a theoretical level, but on a super personal level. Continue reading APW Book Club: Committed (If Women Like it, It Must be Stupid)

Posted in: APW Book Club, Events | 235 Comments »

Oct 2010

APW Book Club, November

Dear Team Practical,

It’s book club time! As a recap, we’ll be reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed (full discussion back here). We’ll be meeting on Sunday November 7th at (suggested) 1pm. Meet-ups will take place all over the country/world, just like last time, and you can sign up for your meetup on Facebook. If you’d like to help organize, please say so, and I’ll pick team leaders next week. I’ll be at the Bay Area meetup again this time (With Lauren! The APW intern!), but I won’t be planning it. I’ve got enough to plan.

Now go read the book (we’ll discuss it online after the in-person meetups), and sign up, and get excited. Wheee! APW DC and APW Boston are already meeting for drinks every month (how cool is that!?)

Happy reading,

Meg (and Lauren, who’s managing the Facebook process)

Posted in: APW Book Club, Events | 34 Comments »