Book Club Experience

For this observation, I attended the book club.  This club meets at 1:30 on a Monday, so I wasn't too sure what to expect.  Who would have the afternoon free...young adults who were students like myself, stay-at-home moms whose kids were in school, seniors?  Turns out it was all retirees!  (One actually was the retired librarian whose job I replaced, and I was told that another absent member was a retired reading specialist from the local high school.)

Since we mentioned him, here's my dog
 with his collection of decapitated heads
 I found under the sofa.

There were only two participants and the leader, perhaps due to the fact that it was bitterly cold outside.  (This meeting was back on February 8.)  The first ten or so minutes were spent socializing, of which I mostly to blame, because someone asked about my dog.  And I have a lot of stories about my dog.   Oops!

The members all seemed to be friends outside of the book club as well ("So-and-so isn't coming today, she told me last night at cards that she wasn't going to make it...") so the atmosphere was very relaxed.  It wasn't surprising that the conversation strayed away from the books on occasion.  In this sort of situation, the book club could have seemed clique-y, but they were very welcoming.  Maybe that's because there were so few of us, but I was asked to come back.  Neither member dominated the conversation, and everyone was careful not to talk over anyone.  One lady told me she actually worried about the club when the retired reading specialist joined, because she thought the woman would take it too seriously.

Bookmark with their schedule detailed

For this month, participants were to read a book of their choosing by Kenneth C. Davis.  If you're not familiar, he writes non-fiction on American history.  There were no repeats, and one woman (the one who was worried about the book club being taken too seriously) actually read a couple of the children's books he wrote because she "wasn't really a reader, I'm here for the socialization."  The leader had each person speak in turn about the book they read, herself included.  One lady had print-offs of the extra research she had done, so she could make her own decision on a president's career first, then see if it matched Davis'.  They all had questions for each other, and seem particularly fascinated by Jefferson's personal life.  I noticed that during this middle portion of the meeting that even though they were focused on discussing what they'd read, it was all about the content.  No one, not even the leader, talked about his writing style, or quality of his research, or anything specific to the author.

Eventually the discussion turned to recommendations of other unrelated books and movies/shows.  For example, I was asked if I had read All the Light We Cannot See and what my opinion of it was.  Then there was discussion on 12 Years a Slave, Love Actually, and another movie I can't remember that a lady had just recently watched.  Then it turned to the surprise birthday party they had all attended last weekend.  ...And then somehow got into their past love lives and current relationships of relatives.   After about twenty to twenty-five minutes of this, the leader decided to wrap up the meeting with some discussion about next month.  Everyone was to read a book by Margaret Atwood, and the leader had brought up a cart of all the available Atwood material, and let us know what was available at other branches or to be placed on hold.  One member was concerned that she wouldn't find anything to enjoy, as Atwood slants toward dystopia.

Here are pictures of the handout given to each member.  It features a review from NPR on Atwood's latest and the second sheet is a full bibliography of her works.

This book club really just felt like a social thing, a group of friends getting together for lunch (but minus the food).  There wasn't much emphasis placed on the reading(s) at all.  To be fair, there were only four of us (and I hadn't read anything) and the nature of the material also meant that discussion could easily stray from being specifically focused on Kenneth Davis to just over American history in general.   The book-focused discussion really only lasted perhaps 30 minutes of the hour and a half the club met.  How would the discussion go if everyone were to read the same book?  (If you enlarge the above image of the bookmark, you'll see that only one month actually requires members to read the same book.)  In that situation, the librarian might have tried to bring more structure to the group with prepared discussion questions.  But then again, I was specifically told that a member preferred the socialization.  Perhaps more structure, while making it a more effective book club, would have made it less enjoyable for the membership.  While I don't feel any urge to attend another meeting, I do wonder about going back and speaking with that librarian, if she feels this to be a challenge--balancing members' casual, comfortable expectations with structured discussion and reading selections that push boundaries.