And Ladies of the Club

My favorite book, ever.

I first read this book as young wife with a newborn baby 25 years ago. Since then I have re-read Ladies of the Club over and over. Each time it tells a little different story because I am in a different place in my own story. I can read how these wonderful people experienced the same life events that I have experienced: children growing up, parents and friends passing, times changing. I continue to love this book, its characters and how it paints such a vivid picture of life and living. I'm so happy to be able to buy a new copy to replace the several tattered ones I've hung on to.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Another fan recommends

Like others who have written, I will confess that my copy of And Ladies of the Club finally fell apart after many readings. I,too have given it as a gift to special friends and I'm happy to be able to get another copy even if it is 'just' a paperback. Even my 'literary' friends like it. I just wish that someone would publish a unabridged recording by an acompished reader so I could listen while I drive.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

One of my all time favorites!!

I have been reading for approximately 56 years (since I was 7 years old) and this truly is one of my favorite books. I first read it in the 80's when it first came out and have read it 2 other times since then (highly unusual for me to read a book twice). Get immersed in the characters as I did and you will laugh, cry, fall in love. Again, a great book. I was told when I first read the book, that this was Ms. Santmyer's first and maybe her only book & she was in her 90's when she wrote it so it may be semi-autobiograpical. Enjoy!!

Keep wanting to read this again.

This was a must read for me in an earlier publication in the 1970's - loved the historical value in living the daily lives of women through 3 or 4 generations. Did not want this one to end.

making a difference

Besides what everybody else said, this book illustrates how simple, ordinary people form the big picture we call History. It gave me goosebumps to realize how much of a difference we can make in our tiny little lives, as a cumulative effort.

This book will earn a place in your heart...

This book earned a special place in my heart when I read it 15 years ago. I got to know the characters as if they were members of my own club, members of my family. My tattered and yellowed paperback copy remains a part of my permanent book collection, as much a survivor of deaths, divorces, births, moves, marriages and remarriages as Anne and Sally. Read it! Get to know the ladies of the Waynesboro Womens Club. You'll not be disappointed. And while you're enjoying this epic treasure, you may also gain insight into a time and place in America you haven't experienced before.

I read this book at least once a year

This is a great historical novel that takes you into the lives of each of the women in the book. You follow the two main characters from early adulthood through their married life. I enjoy this book so much I usually read it at least once a year. My original copy was so worn and falling apart that I had to buy another copy at a used book store!!

Do a friend a favor

I read this book years ago and did not know if it was currently available. I have told many people about this wonderful story that, in my opinion, rates up there with 'Gone With The Wind.' I am giving this book to two of my dearest friends for Christmas--So, do a friend a favor--give this book as a gift and you will be thanked many times over. Thinking about it, I am going to do myself a favor a get another copy for myself since I gave my book away.

Times change - people don't

America before the IRS and the tax preparation industry. America before the health care (and health insurance) industry. America as it was between 1868 and 1932. Sounds nostalgic and wonderful, doesn't it? But this is also a pre-pension plan America in which a single female schoolteacher faces penniless old age. This extraordinary novel paints an uncompromising picture of a midwestern town from just after the Civil War until the opening years of the Great Depression, by following the lives of the charter members of the Waynesboro Woman's Club. I do think this story - or these stories, more accurately - could better have been told in a series of novels, because this single very long book necessarily passes over much that its readers might want to explore more fully. Sometimes key events are 'told' in a few paragraphs, when it would have been better to 'show' these events in additional chapters. However, I found it amazing that the author managed to tell all the tales included as fully as she did. What impressed me most was the matter-of-fact way she managed to include material that's seldom found in novels about well-mannered and educated middle-class ladies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Anne Alexander Gordon, Sarah Cochran Rousch, and their friends and descendants live fully realized lives, confirming what we ought to know already but sometimes find it hard to believe: that while times, politics, wars and economies may change, people don't. All that changes is how they fit themselves into the realities of their times.

Amazing saga!

I've never been so sad to finish a book - especially amazing since this book is huge! The characters are so real and so well developed that I truly felt a part of their long, well lived lives. It's also a facinating portrait of the time in which these women lived. I am a voracious reader but have never become so invested in a story as I did with this book. Its long and worth every page!

Join the Club!

Take a trip to Waynesboro and join with Anne and Sally and the other Ladies of the Club as they travel through life. Take a trip back in time to meet a place populated with loving, funny, and sad people. Laugh with them and cry with them. But you will never be disappointed with them

A MUST READ!!

My mother has been after me for years to read this book - I decided to tackle it this summer thinking it would take me a good 6-8 weeks to finish - WRONG!! It took me less than four weeks to finish...this classic will always be one of my favorites. This book has it all...emotions run high and low. Sally and Anne became a part of my life and upon finishing this book I felt like I was saying good-bye to friends. I, strongly, reccommend this book to the reader that loves a story that is woven beautifully from generation to generation....I promise you this...you will laugh, cry, feel anger and most importantly love. Turn off the television and the computer!! Curl up with this book but keep the kleenex handy!

Best Novel I've ever read. I laughed and cried.

This story pulls you into the lives and souls of the women in the club. You ride the emotional gamut and don't want the story to end! This book is proof that you can't always judge a book by the first few pages.

Humanity and History

This book is full of human stories as it travels the different roads of friends and family members during a very important historical time in the US. Everyone can see themselves in these characters. I couldn't wait to see how each life would unfold and thoroughly enjoyed the historical facts that accompanied the fiction. I'm recommending this book for our NEW book club!

Like visiting with old friends.

I return to this book often. It is a pleasant journey to visit with old friends. They comfort and nurture me, and I feel better for the visit.

The very best novel I've ever read!

This book has it all...laughter, tears, joy, sorrow...and it's loaded with American history. This is one novel that is hard to put down. You can't help but to be engrossed in the characters lives as time goes on...over 6 decades! A Must-Read!

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