My first book club was started by a friend in Dun Laoghaire and I went for about 6 months before starting my own slightly nearer to home. The experience of being in a group of people who like books and have opinions and questions to ask was great - I loved it. It was helpful to see how group was run as well, to get an idea of what works and what doesn't as I started my own.
Personally, I don't think it works very well to have it in people's homes. It puts a lot of pressure on the person hosting, especially if a group culture develops in which there is an expectation of home baked treats or wine and nibbles. And what is the other half supposed to do while a horde of book clutching women invades the living room? If the kids are unsettled, this can be very disruptive as well. One memorable occasion that really sealed the deal for me on this one was when the rest of us had to wait an hour, an HOUR, for the hostess to get her kids to sleep before we could start to discuss the book. Her husband was also at home, but apparently she had to be in the room until they were asleep. Call me insensitive, but I was NOT impressed!
So, we meet in a hotel bar - much more relaxed! We have a few other rules too: we try to keep to books of 400 pages or less so that you have about 100 pages per week. The intention is to prevent it feeling like homework, as you plough through a tome a month with an eye on the calendar. Book Club is meant to be a social, fun part of life - not another item on your to do list. Another rule: you can't suggest a book on hearsay - you have to have actually read it. And if your book suggestion is on that month, you are asked to have at least one question to get a discussion started. This last rule is more of a suggestion than a rule and isn't really followed!
Our absolute number unanimous favourite was: (deep breath) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows. It starts slowly, but blossoms into a beautiful, moving and quirky story. It is set in World War 2 and explores the story of Guernsey under German Occupation. This was an aspect of WW2 of which I was only hazily aware and it was really fascinating with some truly great characters.
Our second favourite was The Help by Kathryn Stockett. What a book! It has so many ingredients: a social commentary, a misfit finding her place, danger and drama, political turmoil, women in different spheres of society and one of the bitchiest characters ever to get her comeuppance in a truly memorable way! We all really enjoyed reading this and I remember it being a great discussion.
The book we least enjoyed was Letters to Sebastian. I don't remember the author and haven't kept the book, which tells its own story. The premise was good - a Dad who receives a terminal cancer diagnosis writes to loads of famous, clever and interesting people, mostly in Ireland, and asks them to write a letter to his son with advice for his life. The letters ranged from dull and pointless to totally trite and cliched, with the most random being a huge essay on fishing. It just didn't really work, but could have been great if the initial letter asking for input had had clearer parameters.
Another we didn't like much was The Slap by Christos Tsolkias. It has a promising plot: at a suburban barbecue, a man slap a child that isn't his own. The books charts the repercussions of this within the social group. I picked this book and thought it was an interesting idea, especially in a group where so many of us have young kids. What became apparent however was that the characters were just horribly narcissistic and mostly drugged up or drunk for a lot of the time. I couldn't relate to any of them and there was no one who was sympathetic, which made for an annoying read in the end.
If you are not in a book club, but thinking about finding one -go for it! But try and figure out if your group is about serious literature only, or a mix of different genres. Are the other members big readers or are most of them only reading this one book a month? It makes a difference and it's helpful to think about how much of a reader you are before you commit to it. That's why some of the original members left; I think they liked the idea of being in a book club, but found it hard to prioritise the actual reading as it really wasn't something they would have been doing anyway.
For me, one of the best things has been discovering authors I would never have been drawn to, but have really enjoyed. Sometimes my expectations have been completely confounded and I have loved a book I expected to hate - this was true for The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Other times, the opposite was true - like The Slap. Andrew reckons we chat about the book for all of five minutes before just chatting and gossiping... This is not the case! We do of course have great chats about life in general and I have made some good friends through the club. But we absolutely discuss the books and it's a great way to find out what people think about things that might not come up in every day conversation.
The next book club meeting is a week tomorrow and we are looking at The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls - a fantastic book. But I already know that one member didn't like it at all. That will make for a good evening's discussion and I am already looking forward to it!
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