Do you Book Club?

I've been in a book club for a little over a year now and to my surprise I'm enjoying it. It's not a surprise to me - or to you probably - that I enjoy reading. It's a surprise that I enjoy talking about books with other people. Especially books that I would not normally pick up and read. If you have noticed the books that I've posted or been over to the page where I list the books I've been reading you'll see a strange mix of fun/ romance reads and literary fiction. It's my book club that keeps me reading the heavy stuff;) 

And that's not such a bad thing. One thing that a book club can be good for is to stretch us in directions that we're not usually going in on our own. This is how I found People of the Book and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle which were both books that I'll be talking about for years to come. 

It's also a good way to get reacquainted with reading for content and not just for pleasure. If the last time you had to read a book and describe any of the characters and their needs, or pick a theme, or figure how why the author was attracted to the color purple was your sophomore year in college then a book club might be a fun way to reawaken brain cells.

Some things to take into consideration when you are joining a book club though is what kinds of books they read. I did ask this question because I like to read genre fiction and they hadn't read a lot recently. We have found a nice compromise. Find out how often the group meets and what the commitment to the group is. Also, if the group has been going on for any length of time they will have established norms already. These are good to figure out so that you don't do something unfortunate.

Above all, let it be fun. Books are a way to spread words and expand our minds. Along the way we should enjoy ourselves. That said, not everyone will like each book but that doesn't mean that each discussion is a bust. Sometimes the best discussions come out of books that no one liked.