For the Love of Book Clubs
If you think about it, education, and in particular English classes, are, to an extent book clubs. Everyone is assigned a book to read and then participate in discussions moderated by a teacher. Which is probably why so many people don't like reading. They view it as homework. Which is why I personally think of book clubs as my own version of BOOK IT! Here we were rewarded for reading with stickers and personal pan pizzas. So what's the reward for book clubs? Getting to get together with your friends once a month to just talk and eat. Just being in the presence of those you care for who also happen to love reading as much as you, even if they didn't read the book, because true book clubs should encourage reading and not punish members if they didn't have time to read the book. I came late to books. I have a few precious volumes of books I read over and over when young, but it wasn't until after I was out of high school that I really started to read. And very shortly my desire to read with others became an obsession. I wanted a book club. I need a book club. And yes, I occasionally went to my mother's book club that consisted of all my grade school teachers because I needed one so bad. I was like Gomez Addams calling into the Sally Jessy Raphael show asking about where the voodoo witch doctors would meet. I even made a fake book club organization for a school project, Literary Linkup, and may have harassed a few of my classmates when they mentioned they were in book clubs. I had become Gomez Addams! But oddly something happened because of this. One of my classmates and I formed a book club, which was eventually dubbed, The Last Word. There were several classmates and friends that came and went over the years. We're now a small core, but through it all, disagreements, reading way more Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Neil Gaiman than I ever thought I would, we've now been together for twelve years this year. Things have changed a bit over the last four years, we're now virtual versus trawling around different cafes, houses, and apartments. But through it all it's about having one day a month where I make time for my friends and discuss what we've read, even if it isn't the book we were supposed to. The different tastes and opinions expands my mind and understanding. We rarely, if ever, agree on a book, and that makes it that much more interesting. So here's to celebrating my book club. Here's to celebrating all book clubs. Over the next few months I'll present just a sampling of what we've read over the years. But I hope you'll find it interesting, and maybe you'll share your own book club experiences.
The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer
