My friend has been bugging me to join her book group. It was sort of dying out and she wanted to revitalize it. I agreed to join on a few conditions:
Condition 1: I have listened to her complain about the arguments over which book to read next. That is silly. We create a survey, have people vote, and plan the entire year's books now. Everyone votes. The books with the most votes will be read. No monthly arguments.
Condition 2: She also had been complaining about not being able to get a hold of the book club book. Some people bought books because the library didn't have them. That is also silly. The public library has dozens of book club book sets. And The Gutenberg Project has tons of books available online for free. So all book possibilities had to come from one of those sources. No one has to spend money on this.
Condition 3: No weird or dirty books. I just do not feel comfortable suggesting that everyone read a book that is inappropriate. If people want to read stuff like that, they can. But we don't have to read and discuss it as a group. So the survey mostly included books I have already read. And a few books my friend insisted on.
Condition 4: I heard about a few occasions last year where one person dominated the discussion, argued with other people, and made people feel stupid. Those people never went back. That should not happen. No arguing or making other people feel stupid.
So I went to last month's book group to do the survey. And I read the book they were reading. It was "Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague" by Geraldine Brooks. There were good things and bad things about the book. I think it was a fairly accurate portrayal of how the plague changed society. I don't think it is a very accurate representation of women and medicine in England. And in the end, the heroine ends up as part of a harem in the Middle East. What?
But, overall, it reinforced to me why I do NOT read adult fiction. There were several allusions to certain body parts (that won't be explicitly mentioned because we don't want web searches bringing perverts to our blog) and graphic descriptions of sex. Were those really necessary to the plot? Really? The little old ladies at book group were upset and admitted to skipping sections of the book because they wanted to be sure they missed the dirty parts. This reinforces to me why I made condition #3.
The survey was successful. The ladies liked the idea. So here is the schedule for the rest of the year:
- February: The Secret Garden (online at Project Gutenberg)
- March: The Alchemist
- April: Eight Cousins (online)
- May: Snow Treasure
- June: The Railway Children (online)
- July: The Book Thief (I haven't read this)
- August: Understood Betsy (online)
- September: The Forgotten Garden (I haven't read this)
- October: The Graveyard Book (I haven't read this)
- November: The Uglies (I haven't read this)
- December: Sarah, Plain and Tall
I have reservations about the books I haven't read. Like I said, I don't feel comfortable recommending books to people if I can't personally vouch for it. Anyway, I'll keep you updated about Book Group.
4 comments:
I've read The Graveyard Book. Delightfully creepy and inventive; I think you might like it.
Some of the things you've talked about in this post are reasons why I've never joined a traditional book club. But sometimes it's hard to find good books out there that don't fall into my usual genre. So in college I was in a book club where everyone came prepared to talk about what they were reading recently. Because many of them were busy college students, a lot of textbooks were highlighted! But I got to participate and I got some good book recommendations. I kind want to start a group like that for my Relief Society.
I'd like to start a men's magazine club with similar rules, in fact now that I've said it I think it would have to be limited to three topics; auto, fire arms and construction/home improvement, since that is pretty much all I read. Except for the scriptures. when you think about it Gospel doctrine is kind of like a book club for the standard works, except most of the members have not read the book in advance. Ha.
That is funny, Dad. And true.
Post a Comment