For 40 days, I am choosing a book from my personal book shelves. It will be a book that is insightful, intriguing, or illuminating about women. I will write why I think this book is a positive one and worth a read. This isn’t advertising for me or to promote any of my friends. It’s simply praise for good books.

Day 4, The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

Once a month, a group of five women and one man meet to discuss one of Her Majesty’s novels. The story takes places over six months – March to August, one month for each of Jane Austen’s six published works – while each member studies the assigned book and prepares for the discussion.

The members of the club include a free-spirited leader who is its creator and binding force; a woman shell-shocked by her husband’s desertion; the shell-shocked mother’s daredevil daughter; a frustrated high school English teacher; a single and perfectly satisfied about that dog breeder; and a geeky man who reads science fiction but whose sisters loved Jane Austen.

Why is The Jane Austen Book Club a good read for women? As in real life, and as in Jane Austen’s novels, people don’t live in a vacuum, and life presents challenges and obstacles. We need friends to get through those times. Some of the JABC five-female-and-one-male members are friends when the story begins, but they are all friends when it ends. The group sees one another through a separation, a death, miscommunications, romance gone wrong, romance gone right, some wonderful meals, and a growing appreciation for books you might not ever read if something or someone didn’t push you toward them.

Plus, for lagniappe, there are discussions of Jane Austen’s novels!