A group of nine gathered on Wednesday the 15^th to discuss two “Emma”s—the original by Jane Austen and the “modern retelling” by Alexander McCall Smith. Thanks so much to Nisha Thatte-Potter for hosting us.

We all enjoyed reading/re-reading the Austen book. We discussed why it’s a classic, why we still find it worth reading 200 years after it was written; Austen’s prose, “every word perfect”; her characters—especially Emma, a complete person of traits both admirable and irritating; the way Austen details a society with its rigid class structure, insularity, appeal and limitations; her psychological perceptiveness. We felt McCall Smith missed entirely Austen’s tone and underlying morality; his book does not stand up in comparison to Austen. However, seen as a stand-alone, it’s a charming, smoothly written light read and we felt McCall Smith had made interesting choices as he set it in modern times.

A delicious time was had by all at our 17th annual holiday cookie exchange! Thank you to Joy Silver for hosting this treasured tradition.

An epic group—13 women!—gathered on Wednesday the 20^th to discuss Emily St. John Mandle’s “Station Eleven.” Thanks so much to Alice Smith for hosting us.

We had mixed reactions to this post-apocalyptic novel. We liked the relatable characters, their resilience, the way Mandel highlighted friendship and community in the face of disaster. We appreciated the tone of the book, “surprisingly not grim.” We talked about the motifs Mandel wove in: a snow globe; a set of limited-edition comic books that give the book its title; Shakespeare and “King Lear” with its blasted heath; a “pervading sense of loss”; the importance of preserving the arts (“survival is insufficient”); luck and chance. But several of us found the jumps from one character to another, from present day to backstory, hard to track. And all of us got picky about details of this situation—for instance, would there really be no one who knew how to generate electricity? Why did none of Mandel’s characters  trek across the country to find a beloved child? So, she got us to join her in imagining a radically de-populated world.

We had a fun gathering at the home of Donna Dong to put together hand-written cards with messages of encouragement and a sheet of custom-made stickers for our students currently on campus. The cards arrived between the Thanksgiving break and before finals, so all our current Smithies from the area felt a little love from all us back home.

Seven of us gathered on Wednesday the 16^th at Sally Smith's house to discuss “Solito” by Javier Zamora. We all really liked this book, with only a few complaints, such as the untranslated Spanish sprinkled throughout the narrative, which interrupted the reading for those who wanted to look up the words and left those who didn’t look them up unsure of what they were missing. The book feels long, and is packed with innumerable details that can seem repetitive, but we agreed that this choice fully immersed us in the boy’s seven-week experience attempting to enter the US illegally. We appreciated the fact that there was not a lot of violence, and in fact there was a lot of kindness and caring, which made the hard parts easier to bear. We admired the now-adult Zamora’s skill in depicting the point of view of a 9-year-old, with his sense of vulnerability, need to trust, embarrassments and naivete, fears and coping strategies, adaptability and intelligence. And we wished we knew more: about his parents and why they left El Salvador, how he adapted to life in the US, what became of the three fellow migrants who composed his fake family.

We celebrated Mountain Day by exploring the Pedro Point Headlands!

We gathered in Palo Alto to review the events of the past 12 months, go over the financial stats of the club and of our endowment fund, introduce our newly elected executive board, and plan for the coming year. Folks came a little early and stayed a little late as we caught up with each other and got excited for the coming year!

Thanks to Diana McDonough for both hosting and leading the meeting this month.  Seven of us discussed Susan Straight’s latest book Mecca, published in 2022, about various friends and families living and working (legally or otherwise) in contemporary Southern California, around San Bernadino and east of it into the desert. 

Straight depicts the area’s canyons, rocks, floods, and fires vividly.  Most of us found her characters - white, black, Mexican, Native - compelling as they endured regular threats and insults from racism, ICE, even the weather.  However, we thought that the large number of characters made the novel difficult to follow.  It was hard to find any overarching plot line or narrative arc.    Some of us found that when we gave up trying to connect all the characters and just treated each chapter as its own short story, it was more satisfying and enjoyable. 

We liked the solidarity between the characters, the theme of family support whether biological or not, the characters’ resilience in the face of fear and danger, the emotional intensity of many scenes, and the interest in language expressed by many characters.  We agreed that the author’s efforts to make connections between the characters was a forced fit and that the book lacked a coherent narrative.  The characters were beautifully drawn but, at bottom, we didn’t know what the book was about.  The ending of the novel, where we hoped all would be made clear, left much unresolved just like the book as a whole.

On Wednesday, August 21, eleven of us enjoyed a medieval-themed potluck and the movie “All Is True.” The movie followed nicely from our March book “Hamnet”—in the movie, we see Shakespeare back in Stratford, restoring relationships with his wife and daughters, and coming to terms with Hamnet’s death years before; he never properly grieved the loss. We all liked the movie, which features Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench and Ian McKellen and seemingly portrays life in an Elizabethan village authentically, including nighttime scenes lit only by candles and fires in hearths. Many thanks to Nisha Thatte-Potter for hosting this annual tradition once again.

We had a lovely time just hanging out in Palo Alto at Blue Bottle Coffee. We do these little meet-ups a couple of times a year. You never need to RSVP, and we'd love to see you!

In recent years we have gifted our newly matriculating students with a club-unique Smith College mug and some tea to get them started on the right tea-lovin' path. We gave these packages to the students who were able to join us at the Summer Tea, and mailed off others to make sure each student had their mug in time to pack for Northampton. This year we leveraged the availability of Smith College tea bags!

Each summer we take this wonderful opportunity to welcome newly matriculation students, students who who are home for the summer, and local alums. It's a special kind of magic to see our young local students connect and share their enthusiasm for heading off to Northampton. Thank you to Joy Silver for hosting!

Eight of us gathered at the home of Laura Hyatt on Wednesday April 17 to discuss “The Book of Delights” by Ross Gay. One virtue of this book, we agreed, is that it is not just sunshine and roses, despite the title. Instead, Gay judiciously mixes the sour with the sweet. For instance, he acknowledges the challenges of being a black man in America; he has a horrific little bit on a man who literally has a hole in his head due to being experimented on with radiation as a child (as in several of these “essayettes,” the delight is smuggled into a brief sentence, while the main point is something else entirely). But just as light is brighter when contrasted with darkness, his moments of delight are more welcome when we remember life is not always cheery. And so we have delight in a red flower growing in a crack in the sidewalk, an unexpected high-five, nicknames, carrots (“the red kind that have almost become two carrots, carrot legs in need of some petite pantaloons.”). A poet, Gay chooses his words with care, but he also muses here in a casual, stream-of-consciousness way that some found a bit irritating, at least at first. We appreciated his humor, and the way he moves from a small incident or item to something more profound. We recommend this book to others.

We hosted an Open House-style Tea on Saturday, April 13 for students accepted for admission at Smith. We were happy to meet these impressive young women and their families, share in their excitement, and offer personal perspectives about the Smith experience.

On Sunday March 23 we enjoyed a gorgeous hike in a little bit of light rain. The greens were greener and the hikers were damper. In the middle of our hike, Theresa Chung ‘85 invited us to her home that borders the trail to have a tea and cookie break. Delightful!

On Sunday February 11 we gathered at Blue Bottle Coffee in Palo Alto for our annual Galentine's Meet-up. Even though we had to compete with Super Bowl mania, we had a solid turn out and enjoyed each other's company thoroughly.

On Sunday, December 3, we gathered at the home of Joy Silver '96 for the cherished 16th Annual Smith Club of the Peninsula Cookie Exchange! What a wonderful event, giving us the opportunity to celebrate the holiday season together by sharing delicious treats and exchanging recipes. Thank you to Joy for her amazing hosting skills.

On October 21st we combined our celebrations of Mountain Day and the inauguration of Sarah Willie-LeBreton, Smith College's 12th president, by taking a hike through Castle Rock State Park, and sharing apples and s'mores.

We held our annual meeting on October 1, 2023, a potluck lunch where we welcomed any Smith alum in the Peninsula Bay Area. During the meeting we reviewed what the club did throughout the past year, went over our financial statement, talked about upcoming events for the new year, and introduced the new board for 2023/2024. A special thank you to Alice Smith for hosting us at Channing House in Palo Alto.

Our August meeting celebrated Movie Night with “All the King’s Men” and a potluck of Louisiana-inspired food at the home of Nisha Thatte-Potter. We had all read at least part of the book, with a variety of reactions, but all regretted the omissions and changes the movie made to the book’s story. We liked the movie nonetheless.

Thanks to Nisha for hosting us.