Reading Friends at 25

In 1998 a dozen women in Arlington, Virginia, began meeting together to discuss books. We soon melded into a group of fast friends. In November 2012, Dawn Bellinger invited the “Reading Friends” we had become to her house in Bethany Beach, Delaware. It was chilly then, but ten of us enjoyed ourselves immensely. This photo show all but Dawn and me in 2012.

This May, seven of us returned to Dawn’s beach house in glorious warm weather, for more talk about books read, dreams dreamed, and lives lived–our 25th anniversary! Though I moved from Arlington to Florida in 2016  (just after we discussed Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See), Joanne and Sharon have hosted me for occasional comebacks and Zoom meetings during the Pandemic helped me stay in touch. So far, only Joanne has visited me in Florida, but I’m still hopeful of showing as many Reading Friends as possible a good time here soon.

My Reading Friends are especially dear. Sharon drove me the 142 miles from her home in Alexandria to Dawn’s in Delaware and back. Ava drove me round trip to the Botanical Garden. Dawn provided comfortable beds and all the food we needed for breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Members brought wine, flowers and sweets; we all pitched in to help.. I was amazed that my $40 share covered all food and drink for three fabulous days! Dawn’s dog, Teeka, shows how we all dove in and dug into common interests.

Wendy, wearing a shirt depicting scores of books, brought us each a cup to celebrate our 25 years together.We all admired Dawn’s garden and how she uses kitchen waste to make effective compost.

Besides long walks on the beach we enjoyed a bonfire one night and a soak in the hot tub the next. Here are photos of the Reading Friends who came. How we missed those who couldn’t come–Hilda, Heather, Kathy, Fern, Lesley, Kelley, Susan, Beatrice, Monica.

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Here are highlights from our tvisit to the Indian River Inlet Life-saving Station.

On Sunday afternoon we drove inland to the Delaware Botanical Gardens and found it quite lovely.  I bought four books for children about sea creatures and one for myself, Nature’s Best Hope by Douglas W. Tallamy (I read it on the flight home and will soon add to the native plants in my back yard.) For 92 more photos, see this album.

At present the group is choosing books for Year 26–perhaps Nine Black Robes by Joan Biskupic or Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver?  We read Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese in 2010; now he has just published The Covenant of Water. So many choices! Here’s to keeping our conversations going however, whenever and wherever we can meet.