What a great idea! A book group composed of my friends and friends of friends. Let's choose wonderful books and read them! and discuss them! with friends! (thesis statement:) A reading group with friends, with wonderful books, to read and discuss--there could not be a better idea.
Sometimes we all come, sometimes we don't. (examples, details, &c. & c.)
Sometimes our ideas of what are great books look different when we read the actual books.
Sometimes we finish the books, sometimes we don't. (we are all busy people, sometimes we actually start reading the book the morning of the meeting day, and by "we" I mean "I," and possible others.)
(bonus paragraph:) Are we possibly too busy for a book group? How can that possibly be? We're educated, literate people, who read, and who like to talk. And eat--let's not forget eat, because there are always snacks, and often cake. Perhaps it is just important to commit to being a part of the group, as a way of committing to reading books? and to constructing parts of our mutual friendships around this commitment to read and discuss books, and eat cake? I think so.
In conclusion, for our book group today, we read and discussed To the Lighthouse, a book I had never read and, moreover, had put off as a part of an eventual "Read Virginia Woolf" project, for which I had always believed the appropriate time, though not precisely now, would arrive and lo, it did, in the form of an e-book, which I checked out from my library after paying my fines, because all the non-e copies of To the Lighthouse--also known as "books"--were either already with library patrons, or in transit, or at libraries scattered hither and yon about the valley but not in my neighborhood: so, and ergo, today I curled up with my laptop (making today much like every other day of my regular life, in effect, although the experience of reading a novel on the laptop was a little different than reading, say, The Huffington Post or The Sartorialist--less clicky, for one thing--), and the people, I am here to tell you that To the Lighthouse is a beautiful and lovely thing, which I'm sure you already knew, but hey, it just happened to me. In an e-book. And it was great to talk about it, with my friends.
(AND: there was cake. The end.)
TAGS: book group, e-, commitment, hither and yon, clicky
It is a beautiful and lovely thing. We must talk about it--although, sadly, without cake. Perhaps a video chat with snacks?
ReplyDeleteIt WAS lovely, even without bread or wine or cake (in my sad case). Always great to see those of us who are less-busy enough to read and attend. But we are all busy, so it's great that we can find time or make time. It is always lovely.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me miss my long ago book group.
ReplyDeleteI would love to read the Lighthouse again for the first time. I think what I love best is how the central consciousness of the book is not really a person, but (I sometimes suspect) the table in the front hall of the house - how does she do that?