Feminine Mystique/Book Club for Troublesome Woman - Historical Fiction DATE 2

6-7 pm - Thursday, September 25

(second date added due to high demand)

Book clubs are hosted at Novel (before or after hours) and are limited to 10 participants per book club; we love how a smaller group leaves us knowing what everyone loved and didn't love about the book. 

This book club includes the purchase of both books to discuss. Please read both before our meeting. 

The Book Club for Troublesome Women is about a group of women who meet at a book club to discuss The Feminine Mystique, and what happens after. As I read The Book Club for Troublesome Women, I kept wishing I had first read The Feminine Mystique, so it felt like the perfect book club pair.

There's no required order to read to participate in the book club.

Book club purchases include:

• Book - (in this case, two) must be picked up in-store; you'll receive an e-mail notification when we have it ready for you
• Sandwich - arrive between 5-6 pm before the book club to order your sandwich (kitchen closes at 6 pm)
• Beverage - pick during book club

All book club sales are final. 

About the Books:

Description of Feminine Mystique
A fiftieth anniversary edition of the trailblazing women's reference shares anecdotes and interviews that were originally collected in the early 1960s to inspire women to develop their intellectual capabilities and reclaim lives beyond period conventions.

Landmark, groundbreaking, classic--these adjectives barely do justice to the pioneering vision and lasting impact of The Feminine Mystique. Published in 1963, it gave a pitch-perfect description of "the problem that has no name" the insidious beliefs and institutions that undermined women's confidence in their intellectual capabilities and kept them in the home. Writing in a time when the average woman first married in her teens and 60 percent of women students dropped out of college to marry, Betty Friedan captured the frustrations and thwarted ambitions of a generation and showed women how they could reclaim their lives. Part social chronicle, part manifesto, The Feminine Mystique is filled with fascinating anecdotes and interviews as well as insights that continue to inspire. This 50th-anniversary edition features an afterword by best-selling author Anna Quindlen as well as a new introduction by Gail Collins.

Description of The Book Club for Troublesome Women

USA TODAY BESTSELLER - SOUTHERN INDIE BESTSELLER - A BRENDA NOVAK BOOK GROUP PICK - GLOSS BOOK CLUB PICK - THE GIRLFRIEND BOOK CLUB PICK - A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2025 (SheReads) - Margaret never really meant to start a book club . . . or a feminist revolution, for that matter in this bold and plucky novel from New York Times bestselling author Marie Bostwick.

"Ideal for fans of historical fiction and those who enjoyed Bonnie Garmus's Lessons in Chemistry." --Library Journal, starred review

"Readers will cheer." --Kirkus

"Perfect for those who love book club, nostalgia for the 1960s, and stories of female friendship." --Booklist

"A feel-good beach read with . . . elements that spark a revolution." --Southern Review of Books

By 1960s standards, Margaret Ryan is living the American woman's dream. She has a husband, three children, a station wagon, and a home in Concordia--one of Northern Virginia's most exclusive and picturesque suburbs. She has a standing invitation to the neighborhood coffee klatch, and now, thanks to her husband, a new subscription to A Woman's Place--a magazine that tells housewives like Margaret exactly who to be and what to buy. On paper, she has it all. So why doesn't that feel like enough?

Margaret is thrown for a loop when she first meets Charlotte Gustafson, Concordia's newest and most intriguing resident. As an excuse to be in the mysterious Charlotte's orbit, Margaret concocts a book club get-together and invites two other neighborhood women--Bitsy and Viv--to the inaugural meeting. As the women share secrets, cocktails, and their honest reactions to the controversial bestseller The Feminine Mystique, they begin to discover that the American dream they'd been sold isn't all roses and sunshine--and that their secret longing for more is something they share. Nicknaming themselves the Bettys, after Betty Friedan, these four friends have no idea their impromptu club and the books they read together will become the glue that helps them hold fast through tears, triumphs, angst, and arguments--and what will prove to be the most consequential and freeing year of their lives.

The Book Club for Troublesome Women is a humorous, thought provoking, and nostalgic romp through one pivotal and tumultuous American year--as well as an ode to self-discovery, persistence, and the power of sisterhood.