Dinners with Ruth by Nina Totenberg

 

For our second meeting in September, we met in person (with Liz!) at the Crepevine and discussed Nina Totenberg's Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships. The memoir describes Totenberg's career as an American legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio and her personal life including close friendships with Cokie Roberts and of course Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In the book, the reader learns interesting stories about Totenberg's challenges as a woman reporter, the first time Totenberg and RBG met, her difficult time tending to her ill first husband, and supporting RBG when her husband died, just to name a few. The book includes pictures of Totenberg with her family, RBG, and other famous people, and the audio book, as read by the author, includes some musical excerpts of her father playing the violin.

We all enjoyed the book. Some minor critiques were that we assumed it would be more about RBG than it actually was and there was an awful lot of name dropping, but let's face it, Totenberg has a lot of friends who happen to be famous. The stories were genuine and inspiring. Some that stood out the most for us were the blatant sexism Totenberg faced as a young journalist, the discussions she and RBG would have at dinner while the young interns watched, her support of Cokie Roberts as she fought cancer, and a beautiful poem.

We had some interesting discussions ourselves on topics including politics, career. children, a closed caption invention, TMI, and ChatGPT.

After lunch, we enjoyed strolling around downtown on a gorgeous, sunny afternoon. We were sorry to miss Karen and Cathy. Next time!

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

 

We spent a lovely afternoon by the pool at Lisa's house to discuss Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawagunchi. The setting of the novel is a coffeeshop in a back alley in the streets of Tokyo.  There is something very special about this coffeeshop. If you sit in the right seat, you can be asked to be transported back in time! But there's a catch: you have to come back before your coffee gets cold. Actually, there are other catches, like sometimes there's a ghost in the seat, but learning these rules is part of the fun. The novel develops several story lines, each with a character wanting to bend the linear trajectory of time to help with a relationship.  In the book, we encountered a young woman wanting to talk to her departed lover, estranged sisters, a wife wanting to see her husband before his memory is ravaged by Alzheimer's Disease, and a mother wondering about her child.

Reactions to the book were mixed. Some struggled with the awkward translation into English and questions about the storyline while others were touched by the deep human relationships and excited to get their hands on the sequel. Some interesting conversations ensued for example, the role of Japanese versus American culture in the reader's reaction to the plot, quiet silence versus rebellion, and how personalities are molded or not molded by environment.

September will be another rare occurrence of two bookclub meetings in one month - wow. We're looking forward to seeing Liz, who we miss so much.