Book groups: ah, the complexity!
If you want to have a reason for refusing to join a book group, just read this article to discover how petty and strange people can be.
Confession: I am a member of a book group. An all-female one, as the majority of them are. Ours has had its share of ups and downs, and some members have dropped out because of time constraints or conflicts with one person or another. We also have had a political brouhaha or two, as in the article.
But we persist, and I think it’s because we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We also happen to be have an unusual number of lively and entertaining women in our group, and we all like to have a good time. That’s the acknowledged main function of our book group—the books are merely a pretext, although we do get around to discussing them.
But people such as Jocelyn Bowie, featured in the article, would have a lot of trouble with our group:
…[Bowie] lobbied for literary classics like “Emma” and the rest of the group was abuzz about “The Secret Life of Bees,” a pop-lit best seller.
The last straw came when the group picked “The Da Vinci Code” and someone suggested the discussion would be enriched by delving into the author’s source material. “It was bad enough that they wanted to read ”˜Da Vinci Code’ in the first place,” Ms. Bowie said, “but then they wanted to talk about it.”
Oops! I have to say that I’m a literary sort too, and couldn’t stand The Secret Life of Bees or The Da Vinci Code, both of which were indeed read by the group I attend. But in that case, I either don’t read the book at all or I skim it. When it’s my turn to choose, I select something I like, and if it tends to be more “literary” than the other selections (and it does) no one has ever complained. This is because we are actually friends, and everyone agrees that our main function in getting together is to have fun.
What is this tendency to make everything into a pretentious undertaking, a way to impress each other with our sagacity? Book groups are the modern substitute for the bowling leagues and the canasta- or bridge-playing get-togethers of my parents’ generation, when people didn’t feel the need to apologize for their lowbrow tastes. They even had parties, too, with no excuse except that they liked to party.
Now it seems that this isn’t enough. Now too many prima donnas seem to spoil the fun—just read the article if you doubt what I say.
And I am astounded at the revelation of a new profession: book group facilitator. There’s one in New York who oversees a dozen groups and charges members $250-300 a year for her services. I have just done the math, and if there are ten members per group (a low estimate), she would be making close to $36,000 a year for her services. Most book groups meet no more than once a month, and usually even less. Not a bad gig, I’d say.
Book groups are the modern substitute for the bowling leagues
What’s next, will we have a book named Reading Alone?
Seriously, I can’t blame anyone for getting pissed at peple suggesting “The Da Vinci Code”. It’d be like getting upset at people who don’t want to watch the Challenger explosion a few times and then chat about how horrible it was to see Sally Ride get blown up.
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I never bought that The Da Vinci Code bs, or UFOs or Bigfoot for that matter.
My wife belongs to such a group. In November of each year, a particular person, who only attends perhaps 25% of the meetings, shows up and passionately delivers her pitch for selections to be read in the upcoming year. The books my wife selects, which tend to be non-fiction, are never selected. I’ve often wondered why she bothers.
I tried to read “The Da Vinci Code’ – but only got up to the second chapter. I kept tripping and falling flat over sentences that read like an entry in the Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest.
And if book club facilitators make a bomb, overseeing groups – just think about the writers whose books are routinely chosen… I would so love to have my own books – like the Adelsverein Trilogy chosen for a local book club! I’d even come and answer questions at their meeting…
Fun article (even for the gray lady) Neo, thanks.
As a *male* who has tried to start and join various book clubs I’ve found they break up and/or get nasty for a simple reason: many pledged “members” don’t read the books. The discussions tend to flatten out when only one or two people have done their homework and the others are clearly just hanging around for the comraderie — or maybe the free wine.
The freeloaders almost always claim that overused modern bailout: I’m too *busy*. I think Louis L’Amour (of all people) had a wonderful skewering of this tendency in his autobiography, pointing out how much “dead time” people have every day (waiting in lines, sitting in cars, staring at computer screens over lunch) where they could be reading — if it was truly important to them.
My favorite quote for this crowd comes from Twain: “Those who don’t read good books have no advantage over those who *can’t*.”
Christa McAuliffe, Patrick. I’m sitting in Concord, NH and the difference is still important to us.
Perhaps book clubs were more sedate in earlier years because geography limited membership, and people had to get along with each other outside the discussion. That has certainly been true of churches and sports leagues. Now people have other choices.
I have belonged to the same 4-couple (plus 12 children) Bible study for 30 years. The studies, popular readings, and videos have all indeed been a means to the end of staying connected. When we drift too far away from actual study, however, we gradually become less motivated to attend and have to enforce a little discipline on ourselves.
Now, Neo, why hasn’t anyone in your group recommended David Weber? Surely he would be more entertaining to someone of your interests than the Da Vinci Code.
When I was in Washington studying at the Corcoran for three semesters a few years ago, I was asked to join a women’s book/dinner club at the Watergate which was allegedly one of the oldest and longest running in D.C. I knew immediately that it would be filled with liberals and said I would go and try it, one month at a time. The January meeting was my first and I dutifully fast-read the book which I found beyond depressing. However, I held my own fairly well at the table during the discussion. The hostess had BDS and I steered clear of politics.
When she later led everyone into her library and started choosing all the books we were to read for the next five months, I could see this was no place for me. They were books I might have been interested in in college or graduate school but not now. They all seemed dark and very esoteric.
It was fun going one time, but the group definitely had a ‘feeling tone’ that was not for me.
Later I excused myself and never went back.
DaVinci Code is to theology and history what X-Files is to physics and biology. Why anyone would want to read Dan Brown’s “source material” or regard the novel as anything but a slick entertainment baffles me.
In hell I will, doubtless, find myself to be “a member of a book group. An all-female one.”
A group where, to make the pain even more infinite and eternal “everyone agrees that our main function in getting together is to have fun.”
I actually found “The Da Vinci Code” enjoyable while I was reading it, but totally forgettable afterward, with no interest whatever in reading it again.
This from a person who enjoys re-reading Heinlein, Rowling, Brian Freemantle (The Charlie Muffin books), and many others.
The Da Vinci Code is the literary equivalent of Chinese food; an hour later you’r hungry again (but for something else).
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I’ve given presentations to book clubs, but never joined one, and I don’t think I ever will. I am way too independent and most of the Oprahesque books that clubs tend to choose are exactly the kind of book I don’t read.
Do you think Readers’ Digest “How to Fix Just About Anything” would ever be chosen for a book of the month? It sure seems to me to be a good use of time, if one wishes to spend spare time reading.
I was in a book group (co-educational — I didn’t realize that’s unusual) for quite a few years. I quit when I realized that while I love reading, I don’t love talking about it. Reading is too individual and solitary an enterprise to work in a group, at least for me. The book group experience reminded me of having to write those detestable book reports in elementary school, having to convert the transporting excitement of some wonderful story into a mundane formulaic summary that vacuumed all of the magic right out of the book. Years later, in book group, it was just as depressing to have to finish some book I hadn’t chosen by a deadline I couldn’t control, just so I could yak about it over wine and cheese when I didn’t want to have to think about it any more.
Now I’m back to the freedom of reading what I want to read, when I want to read it, and talking about reading only with the particular people that I think might enjoy a particular book or have an interesting insight about it. And when I want to have dinner with a bunch of friends, I can do that, too — without pretending that books are the reason. It’s working out very nicely.
Paul Gordon, you sound like my kinda guy. I’m an inveterate re-reader (of the same authors as you, plus some) and I also enjoyed DaVinci Code while I was reading it but – this being my standard – had no urge whatsoever to acquire it so I could re-read it. And can’t remember a thing about it except some kind of floor tile gimmick.
My book club started as a protest against the “A List” book club in the ‘hood – we called ourselves the “B List Book Club,” which eventually morphed into the “PJ Book Club” as our attire got less and less street-appropriate. But what we ought to call ourselves is the “Book Club Where Everybody Except One Person Hates Each Book.” It’s gotten amusing: we have two “ayatollahs,” both very pleasant women and eclectic readers, who pretty much run the show on what we’ll read. The rest of us go along to get along, and inevitably when we get around to discussing the book (which is after the first glass of wine and the first forty-five minutes of gossip – none of which I mind; sometimes it’s the only time I’ve talked to these friends all month), there’s one, maybe two people in the group who actually liked the book. Everyone else talks about how boring, depressing, ridiculous, or pretentious it was.
I love it! And in the summer we read Twilight, which was so bad but so much fun. I’m still re-reading it, to relive my teenage years.
Yep, people can certainly be petty and strange; that’s why I steer away from a lot of things. I can put up with a lot if I get more out of being in a group than not. But some people tend to use groups for some reason other than getting together with friends or other interesting people, or learning something. Being introverted I am very sensitive to that kind of thing.
Everyone needs to be careful to make sure the groups they join are what they want. We are fortunate to live in an age where we do not have to depend on others for everything. It’s a lot different than in centuries past where you had to belong to a certain church and do certain things or people simply would not deal with you. Being in groups can bring out the repressive little Hitler in people. (As an aside, I have always wondered whether that kind of behavior was more conscious than not. Many people are one way one-on-one and quite another when part of a group. Is that more of an unconscious thing, like how some people behave when they become parents? That is, they do stuff not because they have thought it out and are choosing the right way but because that’s what they saw their parents do?)
Like Mrs Whatsit said, I don’t feel the need to use a book club as an excuse to discuss something I read or get together with folks I like. Years ago I was the self-appointed social director of my group of friends. Every month I would put together a little gathering for dinner and drinks for the lot of us and anyone who wanted to tag along. A very strange role, indeed, for a strident introvert. But, if I did not do it, it would not get done. Proof of that is my buds did not carry on with it after I moved away. I suppose that is the reason for neo’s pretext of discussing books. Having a reason to gather at a certain place and time can be helpful. Sort of like when I hired a personal trainer. Her expertise was very valuable but the main thing was motivation. Having a set time to be at the gym to do stuff helped me focus and not dog it too much.
Jamie, likewise.
If they’re not on your list, you should add…
F. Paul Wilson
(“The Keep”, others of the Adversary Cycle and the Repairman Jack series. Extremely readable, and Jack is a lot of fun as well)
Douglas Preston’s and Lincoln Child’s collaborations (especially the Pendergast series). I also like Preston’s solo novels.
Although this might alter your opinion of me, there they are, FWIW 🙂
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At first blush, you’d think that in joining a book club, it’d be considered a good thing that you might be asked to read books you might not normally expose yourself to. I suppose, that is until you get exposed to the latest ‘water cooler buzz’ best seller that you would have stayed away from for good reason. I know, if I joined one, it’d be because I could use more impetus to read more non-fiction, but I’d try to find a group focusing on the classics more.
My group is in its 26th year. We too read Bees and DaVinci–I skipped both nights. We select in May for the next Sept-May, and it works out pretty even–someone usually pleads for a classic, I always go for non-fiction and have had pretty good luck.
Paul Gordon, I’ve read one Repairman Jack book and thought it was a great ride – maybe you and I should form a book club. Putting more of them on my Kindle list now (I’d forgotten about Jack)…