How Should a Book Club Be?
Book clubs kind of suck. But we can reclaim them
I (almost) hate to admit it, but I hate book clubs.
I don’t want to hate them; I don’t want to be the grumpy-cat-of-a-human who stomps all over a beloved (by Oprah!) cultural tradition. But sometimes the truth is unavoidable. Because when you do avoid it, you end up joining a book club.
When I think back over my life so far, it’s hard for me to recall all the book clubs I’ve been a part of, or what they indicated about my life at the time. It’s not unlike someone asking you to recall your sexual partners.
There were the book clubs in my early-to-mid 20s, when it seemed important to maintain a semblance of intellectualism as my everyday habits became more pedestrian and slovenly and fun. Then there were the ones in my late 20s when I had accepted my pedestrian and slovenly and fun everyday habits and wanted to get together with a group of equally pedestrian and slovenly and fun professional ladies (still my favorite kind of people) to drink wine and dip crackers into endless dips—so many dips!—as we kind of discussed the book we were meant to be discussing.
My participation devolved progressively until, finally, I was in a book club called Bookless Club wherein we did all of the things you did in a book club except…
