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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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.

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.

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.

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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