I will be reading the beginning of The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir (at least the first chapter) starting in a week, around Saturday 4/4.  Everyone is invited to read it with me, for as many chapters as they desire.  I have been given the following characterization of the book:

"Why read The Second Sex?

Simone de Beauvoir famously described her own reaction to understanding, in midlife, the influence which gender had had on her life: "It is both strange and stimulating to discover suddenly, after forty, an aspect of the world that has been staring you in the face all the time which somehow you have never noticed."

The effect of this discovery, and of her precise attempts to understand exactly what was at stake, was The Second Sex. How does one awake from a certain blindness? How might one try to see the world clearly, to understand the boundaries of one's own self and the depth of the effect which the world has on one's most private imagination, on one's very existence? The book is about women and has a lot of precise and fascinating things to say on this subject. But what one also learns from this book is simply a way of going about an investigation into things "hidden in plain sight": its psychological insight, its use of art as evidence and its general project of trying to understand how one might construct a life which is as free and as fulfilling as possible."

I will be reading in English, but French speakers are encouraged to read it in French, in which it is divided into two volumes.  Or, for the truly dedicated, read in French, but compare the English to provide a basis for discussion.  We probably won't get through the whole thing, as it is very long.  If anyone has favorite passages, we will read them.

I am unable to find the right image on the list of Books, Movies, and Music, but here is the Amazon link to the English version:

http://www.amazon.com/Second-Sex-Simone-Beauvoir/dp/0679724516/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238191078&sr=8-2

and the French, volume I:

http://www.amazon.com/Deuxieme-Sexe-1-French/dp/207032351X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238191668&sr=1-1