Book Club Experience!

My brother and sister-in-law started a little book club with a few of our friends last year, and so far we've successfully made it through five books. I actually ran my own book club in 2022, and it was super fun, but it fizzled out after four books, so it feels like a big milestone that my brother's book club has lasted longer. There are only eight of us in the club, and most of us have consistently participated. We rotate the person who chooses each month by the order of our birthdays, which definitely has caused some confusion. It took a couple meetings to decide whether we'd start with the person with the nearest birthday, or the person whose birthday is earliest in the year. We also struggle to remember each other's birthdays. There are much better ways to keep a consistent order, so this has been a good learning experience. 

When my brother started the book club, we had no limitations regarding content, genre, or length. Our first book was Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. The discussion was enjoyable enough; everybody had interesting thoughts and opinions to share, but we all decided afterward that we'd have more fun if we stuck with fiction. We then read The Last Unicorn, the Three-Body Problem, A Father's Kisses, and Eaters of the Dead, all of which are pretty straightforward genre fiction novels, and that has proven to be a really rewarding (if unofficial) theme. Each of us has had to break out of our comfort zone with at least one of these novels, and each of us has been surprised by how much we enjoyed a genre we would not have chosen on our own. For example, I was not expecting to love The Three-Body Problem as much as I did, because I am not generally a big sci-fi reader. My brother was not expecting to enjoy The Last Unicorn, but he ended up being a big fan. Overall, the book club has helped us all to better appreciate different types of books. 

The way each meeting runs is quite informal and depends on how everyone is feeling. If it's warm enough, we have a specific tiny park pavilion that we like to use for meetings. When it's cold, we'll meet at someone's house or at a restaurant. We'll have snacks and drinks, and someone will usually make snacks that fit with the theme of the book being discussed (We had some sparkly cookies and colorful drinks for our Last Unicorn meeting). We'll chat for quite a while before we start discussing the book, but we definitely do always end up discussing the book. 

In our most recent meeting, we discussed Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton, a historical adventure novel about a man who travels north from Baghdad to journey with a group of Vikings. We did not have a designated facilitator, and we actually never have in this book club. Usually, one person will provide some kind of segue from whatever we're talking about to the actual book, and the conversation will take off. The dynamic works really well because we are all good friends, and we are all interested in books. From what I could tell in the last meeting, nobody dominated the discussion, and nobody kept quiet the whole time either. There were no official pre-prepared questions, although the person who chose the book did have a few points of discussion they wanted to cover, such as the hilarious narrative voice, the elements of the story that came from true historical accounts as opposed to those that came from Crichton's imagination, and the connection to the story of Beowulf. With such a small group, it was easy to make sure everyone had a chance to share their thoughts, especially because we are good enough friends to tell each other to shut up when necessary. But, there was one member of the club who had not read the book (and who hasn't read the book for a few previous meetings), and this made another member of the club a little frustrated. They bickered with each other in a mostly friendly way, but I could tell there was some genuine tension between them. When the one who hadn't read expressed an opinion, the other was quick to fight back. This put a tad bit of a damper on the mood and probably made the conversation end quicker than it would have otherwise. 

Afterwards, my brother and I talked about how we might create a more clear expectation that everyone should read the book, but we ultimately felt that, given the casual, friendly nature of the meetings, it would defeat the purpose a little bit to try to make the book club more formal.