The Reading Group: A Novel
Elizabeth Noble, 2003
HarperCollins
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060760441
Summary
A bestseller in the UK, The Reading Group is about a group of women who meet regularly to read and discuss books, and how their lives become intertwined, both with the books they read and with each other's lives.
What starts out as a good idea born from a glass of wine and the need to socialize, turns into much more. Over the span of a year, Clare, Harriet, Nicole, Polly and Susan—five women of different ages, backgrounds and contrasting dilemmas — transform themselves through the shared community of a book group.
Their reading group becomes a forum for each of the women's views, expressed initially by the book they're reading and increasingly openly as the bonds of friendship cement. As the months pass, these women's lives become more and more intertwined.
In the The Reading Group, Nobel reveals the many complicated paths in life we all face as well as the power and importance of friendship. (From the publisher.)