Bookshelf: Novel Women

Sandy Glassman and her friend Liz Linkon have a simple explanation for why they began Novel Women: they love to read. “Since we’re such voracious readers, we just contacted a few people about starting a book club,” Glassman says. “We started out with a small group back in 2008 and then more people heard about it and wanted to join, so now we have quite a few women!”

The group meets at Westwood Country Club once a month, and Glassman says usually everyone has read the selected book and participates in the discussion. “We switch leaders each month, so everybody gets a turn,” she says. And once a discussion starts, opinions often change among members. “There have been quite a few surprises where most of us haven’t liked a book going into the meeting, but once we all started talking about it, we discovered there were lots of positive aspects.”

The women previously had given high marks to the other two books in Ken Follett’s The Century Trilogy, so Edge of Eternity was a logical choice for the club.

[about the book]
Edge of Eternity is the third book in Welsh-born author Ken Follett’s The Century Trilogy, which follows five intertwined families (American, German, Russian, English and Welsh) throughout the 20th century. The final book covers the third generation during a tumultuous time in history, from the 1960s through the 1980s. The main characters become involved in the major global events of that time period, including the Civil Rights movement, the Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, Watergate and the JFK administration.

[opinions]
>> “While often gripping, Ken Follett’s very, very long Edge of Eternity lies somewhere between saga and soap opera. Filled with vivid descriptions and accounts of the turbulent historical moments between 1961 through 1989, plus an epilogue regarding the election of President Obama in 2008, this last piece of historical fiction, laced with sex and scandal, falls short of his previous tomes.” — Judy Kaplan

>> “Ken Follett is an excellent author. In Edge of Eternity, he once again combines history and characters you have come to know through all three of his books.” —Sandy Glassman

[favorite]
Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

[up next]
All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

Pictured, seated: Elaine Medve, Susie Bernstein, Sandy Glassman, Judy Kaplan, Liz Linkon, Renee Cohen. Standing: Marcia Shapiro, Gay Kornblum, Susie Knopf, Bobby Nathan, Barbara Smith, Karen Stern

Photo: Bill Barrett