Inaugural Book Club Meeting!
Monday, February 5th, 2007This past December, Courtney sent an e-mail around to a group of fellow library techs and/or book lovers in Vancouver, asking if any of us were interested in forming a book club in the new year. A bunch of us said yes and we held our first get-together on Saturday afternoon chez Court & Andrew.
The first book we chose to read was “The Accidental” by Ali Smith. While we had about a month to read it, of course I didn’t actually finish until a hour before leaving for Court’s. I had trouble getting into it at first; Smith’s writing style is very different from anything else I’ve read. Nevertheless, when I finished the book, I realised that I’d really enjoyed it and was glad that I’d finished it. In April of 2006, the Daily Mail’s book club selection was “The Accidental”, so we based our meeting on those discussion questions. I’ve had occasion to mention the book club to a few people, who have all been suitably impressed that we actually talked about the book - apparently, in most book clubs people just drink and gossip about other stuff!
Next up is “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold, which I’ve already read but liked a lot and will be happy to talk about. And then we arrive at my selection, “The Golden Spruce” by John Vaillant. I started reading this book a couple of months ago but had trouble getting past the first chapter. I’ve heard others say they had the same problem, but at the same time, I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s an amazing book, so I hope reading it for book club will motivate me to power though the…er…drier bits and get to the good stuff.
It felt really good to have a good talk with my friends about literature and get the ol’ critical thinking going. Even though I’m sure we’ll lapse a little more into the eating/talking book club MO over time, I hope we’ll manage to maintain a group of nine or ten, and keep the good discussions coming. A great start to 2007!
