Book Club Experience

My book club experience actually took place this afternoon, and I am glad to have found a group to observe/participate with within the deadline! Over the past few weeks, I have been looking into book clubs offered by libraries within approximately 20 miles of me, and unfortunately the meeting times of those I could find each conflicted with my work schedule. Thankfully, a friend of mine mentioned her office’s book club to me last month and extended an invitation to me for today’s meeting. This was the third meeting of the group in as many months.

We met at a bar in the area, where everyone ordered their own drinks and appetizers. While the club was created by a group of coworkers together, only one of them had prior experience with book clubs, so she took the lead of the discussion, as she had for the other meetings. I later learned that she also has been selecting the books that the group has been reading, though the other members have had some input regarding the type of book they are looking for, based on their opinions of the last selection. So far, they have been reading romances. Much of the conversation when everyone first arrived revolved around introductions (mostly for me) and talk about work, the weekend, daylight saving, etc. Eventually, though, the group did get into talking about the book once prompted by the leader.

Most of the book talk was enjoyable and engaging, with different attendees sharing their opinions and reactions to the book and its characters, much like you would when discussing of other entertainment like a TV show or movie. These parts of the discussion (lively, excited) actually took place at points where the attendees hadn’t been prompted by the leader’s questions. Some of the questions she asked, while potentially helpful for conversation in another group, did not lend themselves as well to the more chatty, gossipy atmosphere of the group (and I mean that in the best way, they were a lot of fun!). Questions like “What kind of reader would enjoy this book?” just did not mesh well with the direction the conversation was going, especially since it was more casual than I imagine an official book club through an institution would be. She seemed to recognize this after a few questions and the conversation flowed from there. 

I hope to find a library book club event in the near future so that I can compare it with this experience, but I do think that this was a valuable experience for me nonetheless. Very few of the people I interact with day-to-day are readers, so my last real discussion about a book (where more than one of us had read it) was in my undergraduate literature class, which was very different from this gathering. Observing a more casual group like this also helped me get a better feel for why people join or form book clubs in the first place. Yes, some people do just want to discuss a book or dive into the deeper meanings of a piece of literature, but in this case, most of this group was looking for a place to laugh, get together outside of the office, and socialize with an easy conversation starter. Books (and book clubs) can bring us together in more ways than one, and this experience goes to show that there is no one right way to host a book club—it all depends on what you want out of it and what is expected.