Quite a few years back Barb M. started a book club for the women of our dear-departed organization, and some of our friends. It was great fun...We met on Friday or Saturday nights at different people's houses and always had a big meal - usually coordinated with the book we were reading - and the wine flowed rather freely. So did the laughter and levity. A number of the women in the group were mothers of young children and enjoyed the chance to get out with friends.
Like most such groups, this one included a mix of avid readers and those who wanted a bit of a push to read. Both types enjoyed the lively conversations that ensued.
When core members of the group moved away we found it difficult to continue, and eventually more or less gave up.
Several of us met in March 2008 to discuss having a women's book club once again, or to relaunch the old one. We discovered that it was easier to schedule meetings and to pull off logistics if we met in some neutral location (no one would have to cook or clean!) We've been meeting at a local coffee shop from 8-10 on a Saturday morning, when few other things are scheduled. We gather about every six weeks.
Factors that affect our choice of books include:
- Quality (we like things that are well written and enjoyable, and not sleazy)
- Length (we avoid things that are too long)
- Availability (most of us get the books from the library)
- Content (e.g., we have all traveled fairly extensively and enjoy reading things with an international flavor)
- Familiarity (it's good if one of us has already read the book, but not all of us! That way we'll be stretched but not into places we are unlikely to want to go)
Here are the books we've read in the last 15 months or so. (Go to "Search this blog" for my response to some of them.)
Khaled Hosseni, The Kite Runner
William Young, The Shack
Philip Gourevich, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda
Ron Hall and Denver Moore, Same Kind of Different as Me
Robert Cormier, I Am the Cheese
Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Anne Lindbergh, Gifts from the Sea
Anne Tyler, Digging to America
Greg Mortensen and David Relin, Three Cups of Tea
So... Any suggestions for future reads? Our next one is Harry Bernstein's The Invisible Wall.
2 comments:
I just asked a friend if we could do a mini-book club... really as a way to have regular interaction with her. She is an avid reader, and I am finally reading alot again (after my 8 year sabbatical from that!).
But I'm not sure how to decide what to talk about... and do we read it all before we talk about it?
Guidelines?
Thanks!
People approach these things lots of different ways. Most typical is probably to pick a book together and then get together in a month or so when everyone has read it. Or most everyone! But others will meet more frequently, discussing a chapter or chunk of the book they are reading, each time. That might work better for you if the relationship is the important thing and you have the time to meet more often.
Some publishers provide book-club discussion guides, but you can also approach things more casually, e.g., what was your favorite part, what do you want to hold onto, what character do you identify with, what did you learn... what did you agree/disagree with, how would you have changed it if you could?
My favorite book club experience was one that met every Sunday night and actually read the books aloud. It was nice having no homework, allowed us to take on stuff that was more challenging than we might have been able to get through on our own. It was a lot of fun. But it also took a long time to get through anything. I think we took nine months to get through Ivanhoe, and might not have been able to get much out of it if we didn't have, among us, a pretty good education in various languages and kinds of literature.
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