Page-Turner's Book Club December 2024 Meeting

Page-Turners book group will meet at Tamra Mediterranean Grill in Saratoga. We will meet at 6:45.

Note: This meeting will be held a week earlier than usual.

December 19th: Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships by Nina Totenberg. 320 pp..

From Goodreads:

**Celebrated NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg delivers an extraordinary memoir of her personal successes, struggles, and life-affirming relationships, including her beautiful friendship of nearly fifty years with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.**Four years before Nina Totenberg was hired at NPR, where she cemented her legacy as a prizewinning reporter, and nearly twenty-two years before Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court, Nina called Ruth. A reporter for The National Observer, Nina was curious about Ruth’s legal brief, asking the Supreme Court to do something declare a law that discriminated “on the basis of sex” to be unconstitutional. In a time when women were fired for becoming pregnant, often could not apply for credit cards or get a mortgage in their own names, Ruth patiently explained her argument. That call launched a remarkable, nearly fifty-year friendship. Dinners with Ruth is an extraordinary account of two women who paved the way for future generations by tearing down professional and legal barriers. It is also an intimate memoir of the power of friendships as women began to pry open career doors and transform the workplace. At the story’s heart is one, special Ruth and Nina saw each other not only through personal joys, but also illness, loss, and widowhood. During the devastating illness and eventual death of Nina’s first husband, Ruth drew her out of grief; twelve years later, Nina would reciprocate when Ruth’s beloved husband died. They shared not only a love of opera, but also of shopping, as they instinctively understood that clothes were armor for women who wanted to be taken seriously in a workplace dominated by men. During Ruth’s last year, they shared so many small dinners that Saturdays were “reserved for Ruth” in Nina’s house. Dinners with Ruth also weaves together compelling, personal portraits of other fascinating women and men from Nina’s life, including her cherished NPR colleagues Cokie Roberts and Linda Wertheimer; her beloved husbands; her friendships with multiple Supreme Court Justices, including Lewis Powell, William Brennan, and Antonin Scalia, and Nina’s own family—her father, the legendary violinist Roman Totenberg, and her “best friends,” her sisters. Inspiring and revelatory, Dinners with Ruth is a moving story of the joy and true meaning of friendship.

Upcoming books
January 30: In the Land of Milk and Honey by Jane Jensen. 304 pp..
Note: This is the second book of a series. We have 6 weeks between December and January books, so....

February 27: Yellowface by R. F. Kuang. 336 pp..

March 27: James by Percival Everett. 303 pp..

April 24. Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, Sam Bett (Translator), David Boyd (Translator). 430 pp..

RSVP guidelines: If you attend a meeting, you will be automatically RSVP'd Yes for the following month's meeting. If you will be unable to attend, please let us know by changing your RSVP to No.