SPONSORED POST: A modern trend with an old-fashioned feel to it is the book club. I started a book club a while ago and if you’re thinking of joining a book club or perhaps starting your own, I would strongly recommend it. One big reason to get book clubbing is …
it exposes you to a wide variety of literature that you wouldn’t ordinarily read. This broadens your reading experience, which can only be a good thing.
Through my book club I was recently introduced to Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series. I’d somehow never heard of this bestselling author and his well-known, much beloved series, led by main character Thursday Next. A brief introduction to Thursday Next, by Wiki:
Thursday Next is the main character in a series of comic fantasty,, alternate history novels by the British autthor Jasper Fforde. She was first introduced in Fforde’s first published novel, The Eyre Affair, released on July 19, 2001. As of 2012, the series comprises seven books, in two series.[1] The first series is made up of the novels The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten. The second series is so far made up of First Among Sequels, One of Our Thursdays Is Missing andThe Woman Who Died a Lot.
I fell in love with this series in the first few pages and am devouring the boooks at a steady pace.
It’s wonderful being introduced to a new series and the book club has changed my approach to books and reading. I’m now scouring the literature review sections of the newspapers, hunting for new books to possibly introduce to my Voracious Readers of Virginia book club.
The Folio Society recently sent me some books to review. I love books from The Folio Society, as they come beautifully bound and in their own individual box. Years and years ago, in my late teens, early 20s, I came across The Folio Society – I don’t quite remember how – and I signed up for a package of books that included Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and a few other classics. I have them to this day, despite myriad trans-continental moves and traversing the east coast of Australia for a decade. They are among my most prized books. They are beautiful to look at, gorgeous to hold and the treasures contained within their pages are timeless. We forget sometimes that reading is a tactile experience.
So, of this recent batch to be sent – which includes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – I’m trying to decide which book will provide a wonderful reading experience for my Voracious Readers.
At the moment, I’m plumping for Atwood, if for no other reason than it will give me an opportunity to mention that I met Ms Atwood when I was doing Sydney radio, appearing as a regular panelist on Richard Glover’s Critic’s Corner. Nothing like shameless name-dropping, eh?
As I’ve written in a previous post, the secret to a good book club, I think, is providing the questions to stimulate passionate debate, or at least, vigorous discussion. So I’ll do some research to find great book club questions that go with this book. Readers can think about their answers as they move through the book.
What are your great tips for a good book club?
Should I try to get the group to be a bit more disciplined with the discussion points? We tend to wander off topic rather easily, discussing events from school or our kids, at the drop of a hat.
All suggestions welcome!
The Margaret Atwood one is the only one I haven’t read. Lord of the Flies was read in Social Studies (or was it English?) in 1984 (a year of very black books, also including 1984 (no surprise there) and Brave New World, and maybe even Grapes of Wrath, though that could have been HSC in 1986). Hitchhiker’s of course was just for fun. Admittedly I at least have those two on my shelf already – classics, could never part with them!