Read Online The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood - Free Book Online

read the book. Surely there was a movie of Pride and Prejudice . She remembered Cate’s teasing: No cheating. She vowed to read every other book, from The Great Gatsby to Slaughterhouse-Five . Every word. Then she went to Netflix, and scrolled down to P.
    T he book group met on the second Monday of every month, in that same downstairs room. Emma always set up a table of snacks related to the setting of the book. For Pride and Prejudice , there were scones and clotted cream and small triangles of cucumber and egg salad sandwiches. When Cate called everyone to their seats, which were arranged in a circle tonight, Ava saw that instead of her usual loose tunic over black leggings with moss green or dark red Australian walking shoes, Cate stood in front of the room in a white Empire-waist dress with a small floral pattern, her pale blonde hair pulled into a bun with stray ringlets around her face.
    Ava glanced at the circle of chairs, already almost all occupied. How could she be inconspicuous with this seating arrangement?
    â€œHey there, Peggy Fleming,” Luke said, holding a chair out for her.
    There was nothing for her to do except sit.
    â€œYou looked good out there,” he said. He had the porkpie hat on again, and the same flannel shirt.
    â€œPeggy Fleming?” Ava said, balancing her plate of sandwiches on top of the book in her lap. “A little before your time, wasn’t she?”
    â€œMy mother loved her,” he admitted.
    â€œAh,” Ava said. So she was old enough to be his mother?
    Luke tilted his chin at the book. “How’d you like it?”
    Ava swallowed, feeling a little guilty. “I enjoyed it,” she said.
    She had enjoyed the movie, enough to wonder if she might have actually liked the book too. She’d even gone to the bookstore and bought all of the other books. She lined them up on the night table on Jim’s side of the bed, waiting for her to open them.
    â€œJust so John and Ava don’t think I’ve lost my mind,” Cate began, “as an homage to the beginning of this book club when we would actually recreate meals from the books—”
    â€œI cooked for a week when we read Like Water for Chocolate ,” Diana interrupted.
    Penny and Ruth laughed.
    â€œNot funny,” Monique said. “I had to make the food for Angela’s Ashes .”
    â€œYou can see why we stopped doing that,” Ruth explained.
    â€œI dress vaguely related to the book—” Cate began, but was interrupted by Ruth.
    â€œYou refused to wear an antebellum gown when we read Gone With the Wind .”
    â€œTrue,” Cate said. “But I do try. We are serious readers, ofcourse. But we like to have fun with the books too. That’s why Emma works so hard on our snacks.”
    â€œI like it,” John said softly. “Every Halloween my wife made us elaborate costumes. Like once, she constructed an electrical outlet costume for her, and I was a plug.”
    â€œI should do that for my twins,” Ruth said. “They’ve been Tweedledee and Tweedledum too many times.”
    Cate started giving background about the book and Jane Austen, and the group settled into a comfortable silence.
    â€œFor someone who wrote behind a creaky door so that she would know when visitors approached so she could hide her manuscripts, Jane Austen has certainly given up her anonymity,” Cate said.
    Ava tried to concentrate on Cate’s description of the social milieu of Regency England and the class divisions, but her mind kept wandering. Jim was back from Peru. She knew because she’d spotted his reliable blue Prius on her way to the library, parked just two blocks from home. What had he been doing on Williams Street? For a silly moment, she thought he’d parked there and then walked to their old house, maybe to see her, maybe to reconsider his moving out. Out of the house, out of their life. All of it so swift that she was still