{"description": {"type": "/type/text", "value": "**From Amazon.com:**\r\n\r\nA sparkling and profound consideration of women and power: the power of intellect, of money, of integrity, and of loyalty, love and self-respect.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf I have a bias it is in my suspicion that women are intellectually and intuitively superior to men,\u201d writes Christopher Gates, the elegant, sharp-tongued narrator of this book. \u201cBut,\u201d he adds, \u201cI certainly never thought they were \u2018nicer.\u2019 And I very much doubt that anyone could think so who was raised, as I was, in a society in which the female had so many more privileges than the male.\u201d And so he begins to describe the twelve women who\u2014as debutantes\u2014 instituted his mother\u2019s \u201cbook class\u201d in 1908 and with admirable tenacity met every month for over sixty years to discuss a selected title, old or new.\r\n\r\nCertainly during their lifetimes these women did not have any real political or economic clout comparable to that of the men of their day. Only Adeline Bloodgood had ever held a regular job, and only Polly Travers, as a State Assemblywoman, ever played a formal role in politics. For Georgia Bristed, \u201cthe hostess had largely consumed the woman,\u201d and Leila Lee was \u201ca beauty in a day when simply being beautiful was considered an adequate occupation.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd yet, although most of them were surrounded by a staff of servants and had no discernible responsibilities, these women still lived their lives with serious intent backed by a considerable and undeniable power that in no way derived from \"the snares and lures of womanly wiles.\u201d Within the protected discipline of their surroundings, their lives were filled with drama and challenge\u2014moments of passion, of betrayal and loyalty, of sweet revenge and joyless conquest, of irony and illumination.\r\n\r\nAs the story unfolds, the women emerge as both heroines and victims; and in telling their story, Louis Auchincloss again proves himself a novelist of consummate skill whose sense of compassion and irony deepens with each new work.\r\n\r\nOf his book Narcissa and Other Fables reviewers said: \u201cAuchincloss is still one of our best writers of fiction . . .\u201d \u201cA master story teller . . .\u201d \u201cAuchincloss is at his elegant best here.\u201d"}, "title": "The book class", "covers": [7285633, 5410508], "subject_places": ["New York (N.Y.)"], "first_publish_date": "1984", "key": "/works/OL134227W", "authors": [{"type": {"key": "/type/author_role"}, "author": {"key": "/authors/OL21968A"}}], "type": {"key": "/type/work"}, "subjects": ["Fiction", "Gay", "Large type books", "New york (n.y.), fiction", "Fiction, historical, general"], "latest_revision": 12, "revision": 12, "created": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2009-10-19T14:05:11.183754"}, "last_modified": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2024-07-31T14:30:45.727437"}}