From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

The Group

Mary McCarthy

Start date: October 1, 2015

Finish date: October 15, 2015

Discussion: Classics Corner

Discussion leader: Tonya Presley

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Showing 2 of 351 topics — 11,866 comments total

Classics Corner

* The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
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last updated Jun 25, 2025 08:25PM

Palace of Desire — discussion with ✴spoilers✴
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What Members Thought

Jul 15, 2007 David rated it it was ok

Mary McCarthy has never seemed particularly likeable to me (though I would take her over Lilian Hellman any day). The same applies to her books. Claustrophobic and not very likeable.

3 likes · Like · see review

Jul 30, 2007 Daniela rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-as-a-student

Oh, learned a lot for a girl growing up in the seventies in a country where birth control and abortion were prohibited by law!

3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 18, 2006 Courtney rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Satire of upper-crust New England society.

The novel follows the lives of eight friends and Vassar grads. The Group meets in New York to attend the wedding of one of the members, and reconvenes years later at a funeral. The story touches on the lives of each of them, describing awakenings, triumphs and travails.

2 likes · Like · see review

Oct 25, 2009 Patty rated it did not like it

Shelves: didn-t-finish

Evidently this was a controversial book for women in the early 1960's, and tho I read the Feminine Mystique, I missed this one. Just a little too young then, I guess LOL. Since Betty Draper was reading this in last week's episode of Mad Men, it piqued my interest. ...more

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