Dinner with Anna Karenina

Six women discover their lives enriched and transformed by their shared passion for books in Goldreich's delightful tribute to friendship. Cynthia, Jen, Elizabeth, Trish, Rina and Donna participate in an informal Manhattan book club that exposes "their dreams, their deepest fears, their brightest hopes" while they discuss great literature and enjoy wonderful meals. The group's tranquility shatters when Cynthia, the most glamorous of the six, announces before an Anna Karenina discussion that she's divorcing her husband, Eric, a highly successful documentary filmmaker. Cynthia refuses to explain why she suddenly can no longer live with Eric, leaving her friends shocked and curious. For a whole year, as the other five endlessly speculate about Cynthia and face their own personal problems, the women probe the riches of authors like Tolstoy, Flaubert, Plath and Nabokov. In the end, their emotional support of each other grows as they learn to understand and forgive each other's weaknesses. Goldreich's novel Leah's Journey won the National Jewish Book Award for fiction. (Jan.)