A combo of two suggestions by: Heidi and by litlove:Have you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose (or, if you haven’t been, what do you think is the best way to choose) the next book and who would lead discussion? Do you feel more or less likely to appreciate books if you are obliged to read them for book groups rather than choosing them of your own free will? Does knowing they are going to be read as part of a group affect the reading experience?
In recent years I have been a member of three attempted book clubs, though none panned out terribly far. And, by "recent years," I really mean two summers ago:
As a lit major in college I had little time for recreational reading, and was pretty exhausted from reading items I knew would be discussed in more depth than I (often) cared to. When I finally graduated and had taken a significant break from reading anything more difficult than the Harry Potter series, my good friend Eric and I decided that a summer book club was in order. Using the phenomenal medium of Facebook, we formed a group and came up with a nifty name: A Staggering List of Books to Read.
Mistake number 1: letting Eric pick the first book before we had any other members. He and I were both quite excited to read Dave Eggers' What is the What, though, before I had it in hand, I had little concept of how long it really was. After much thought, we invited friends to join us; several were excited... until they saw the book choice. After a month of attempted meetings, and my inability to finish the book, we moved to a second choice, Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. Though this title was much more "summer friendly," it still proved nearly impossible to gather our group for discussion (even with the promise of food). And so we just gave up.
Book Club Attempt Number 2 was more about getting involved in my new church than anything else. Books were chosen by democracy; the group was quite diverse in all possible aspects (except gender - we were all women) which led to a good book and a not-s0-good book during my duration with the group. The not-so-good book was the first pick (it was actually written by a person closely connected to the church, and her first novel), and the only reason I actually DID read it was because I knew I would be discussing it with people whom I did not yet know very well, and I wanted them to like me.
(I left this book club because I left the church... the later was not predicated on the former.)
Book Club Attempt Number 3 was a great Facebook experiment with my former academic adviser: BookFace (original, we know). Dan had left my alma mater before I graduated, but remained in contact with those he left behind. Somehow this idea for an online book club was born and bred into a beginning, connecting Dan's students across the country (and even venturing a little bit to the rest of the world). By popular vote we chose to read The Kite Runner, set up a reading schedule and discussion board, and BookFace took off... for about a book and a half. The brilliance of a multi-location book club was also the difficulty of a multi-location book club. After the first choice, it was quite difficult to agree on a book to read (lit majors are picky people), and even more difficult to accommodate peoples' online availability. Theoretically BookFace still lives in a suspended state, but may be on permanent inactive status.
So, to backtrack to the original questions, I have mixed feelings about the effectiveness of book clubs in spurring on appreciative reading. Perhaps my days of class are still too near for me to feel like the book club exercise is anything more than a high-pressure assignment. I think the foreknowledge of a book discussion completely affects the reading experience: I am less likely to enjoy the book as a work of art, and more likely to be focused on "getting" it (or at least guessing what other people will think is important about it so I can participate in the discussion). I don't believe all book clubs necessarily function this way, but would be willing to wager that the differences lie in the participants and their levels of comfort with one another.
I do enjoy discussing books, when the discussions are unexpected and are had over an excellent cup of coffee. (Apologies for the tangential nature of this post. Thanks for reading!)
4 comments:
Part of the beauty of my book club is that it is officially a 'no pressure' book club. That is occasionally problematic if NOBODY reads the book, but usually that means it was a bad book.
I supose one shpoud go for relatively thinner books. Fat ones scare most people. For die-hard readers like us, we prefer fat ones. I pick up a book above 400 pages. Usually!
Difficult choices too don't get read!
Booking through clubbing
It's so hard to find the right balance. To answer your question on my blog, we save our NY Times Bestseller selection until only two months before that discussion. That way we can grab the new stuff and still have time to read it.
Must say the more I read about these book circles, the more it feels that doing a review on a blog and inviting comments from people who have read the book is just as good!
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