Saturday, 9 August 2014

In Which We Discuss Reading for Book Clubs

You may recall, I attended a bookclub several years ago.  They were reading Frankenstein, which I'd been meaning to get to for years.  It was an okay evening, but the next few books were things I'd never felt any interest in, so I stopped going.

I've often felt resentful over being forced to read things I'm not interested in.  I think this stems from being forced to read specific books at school.  We'd always read as a group, and it was so slow.  If I'd been allowed to read myself, it would have taken half the time.  But, no, I had to listen to some eejit stammering over words and taking ages to come out with the simplest things.  So frustrating.  So I think I probably had a similar issue with bookclubs suggesting I read things I didn't want to.

My feminist group started a bookclub about a year ago.  At first, my attendance was patchy - couldn't always afford the book, couldn't always get time off to go, sometimes just completely forgot.  Now I'm working the first problem's solved, and I've booked those days off as holiday for the rest of the year.  I get most of then back as my natural rest days anyway.

It helps that it's a small group, and it's amongst people I know and it also helps that it covers a topic I like, so I find reading the books quite interesting and rewarding.

I've started going to another bookclub since then.  A coworker recommended John Scalzi's Red Shirts to me, and when looking at MeetUp a little while later, I noticed a local group was planning to read it.  I enjoyed that meeting, and went to the next one, since it was sci-fi themed and I was free.  Also, because the book had happened to be sitting on my unread shelf for a few years.  Again, it's a small group of people that I like, and the books are things that I'm interested in.  Since we're all fairly fast readers, they've started a midweek book group, as well as the general one, which I've also been going to.  So that's three!

This month, I've actually chosen two of the books.  Sheri Tepper's Plague of Angels, and Colette Dowling's Myth of the Money Tree, both books I've read and enjoyed previously.  I'm quite looking forward to discussing both of them!

I've also been rereading The Dice Man, which I haven't read in a good five years.  I'm still listening to Firestarter on audiobook, though I stopped for a bit.  Making it a daily habit on HabitRPG has really helped me get back into it.  I'm also listening to The High Lord intermittently.

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