Being One of the Book Group

I have always been erratic in my reading habits. As a child I read stories when I had to. When I was a student I read all sorts of novels, that were fashionable at the time, when I should have been spending my time studying. As an adult, with children, I read when I could, and when I could keep my eyes open for long enough. Otherwise I have been mainly a holiday reader. However in the last few years, and especially since I retired, I have found renewed interest and reward in reading and being part of the book group. I don’t have any literary skills, or any ability to analyse books, but I have learned that a book group doesn’t need that. The group works well because the members react to books in different ways.

So how does the book group work?
I would say that it works in a relatively chaotic and unstructured way. The conversation at the Drum meanders in and around the plot, the characters, the situations, the setting of place or time, and most interestingly the way these things impact on us as individuals. Our reactions to a book depend on our own particular values and life experiences. Often the context of the book is challenging. Reading gives you the opportunity to put yourself in the shoes of another human being faced with a unique set of threats and possibilities. I think reading stimulates the imagination more than watching or even listening if we can find the energy and the space to let that free. Sometimes we appreciate the lyricism of the writing. At others we admire the seemingly simple or stark narration of an engaging plot. As we talk about a book we may learn to see more than we at first recognised, not just about the book but about other people. Reading can make us more broad-minded and tolerant. I think within the group there is a sense that a good book can change us in small but useful ways.

So how do we choose books?
Sometimes a book seems to suggest itself…perhaps it has been a prize winner (We recently read a book of short stories by Alice Munro who had just won the Nobel Prize in Literature). Sometimes we read a book from an author who is somebody’s favourite. Sometimes a book idea comes up from something in our conversation. Otherwise we take it in turns to suggest a book. This way we have read an extraordinary selection of books. For example we have read “The Help”, which was about being a black servant in the American South. We read “Round Ireland with a fridge” which was one of our rare excursions into non-fiction. We have read two book about Africa, “Half of a Yellow Sun” (about Biafra) , and “The Poisonwood Bible” (about a missionary family in the Congo). We have read books in a fantasy or science fiction genre such as “The Night Life of the Gods” and “Oryx and Crake”.

We liked Margaret Atwood so much we went to see her in Bristol when we got the chance. We have read thrillers and detective stories. We have read contemporary fiction and some “classics”. Recently we read Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.” That is not to say that we have enjoyed all we have read. There was one book that none of us went on to finish because we all thought it so bad! There have been one or two books which most of us finished it but without liking it much and one, which I suggested, where I was the only one who liked it. If you are in the book group you don’t have to waste your time reading a book you don’t like; life is too short!!

So how could the book group be better?

Colin Bedford