Book Club

I attend a book club that meets once a month at a bar here in town. This group is lead by one of the librarians from the Muncie Public Library, named Anthony.  Anthony will ask questions about the book but will let others answer those before he adds any input himself. The group has anywhere between 8 to 12 people at each meeting. This past month we discussed “A Wrinkle in Time”. The first part of the meeting was talking about whether or not we liked the book. This helps to get the discussion going and I always enjoy hearing why people did or did not enjoy a book. For this particular book, it was about 50/50 with people who liked it and those who didn’t. There is one lady that comes every month and she has only enjoyed one book that we have read in the last year and a half but she still enjoys coming to discuss the books. From the initial point, Anthony asks more questions to get the conversation going. He usually only has to ask around 5 questions for the evening in order to cover the whole book. He looks up information from different websites to help build on the conversation. The questions that he asks are ones that take more than a yes or no answer. If that is all that is given he asks for people to elaborate.

        During the meeting, all the participants contribute to the conversation. Every once in a while there is one person that will try and take over the discussion but Anthony does a good job at trying to bring others into the conversation. When this person is talking he is talking about the book and will answer the question that is being asked. Every once the conversation will stray into other areas of life and the world but Anthony will bring the focus back to the group purpose. The majority of the people that come to book group will read at least 50 percent of the book so the discussion will follow along with the themes of the book well.

        The meeting is held on the third Thursday of every month at the same bar.  This particular location is typically not very crowded, looks pleasing and is not very loud.  In the past, we have asked the owner to turn the music down during discussion times and they have been really easy to work with. Since we are at a bar most of the participants buy themselves a beer or a glass of wine.  Since the bar doesn’t have food Anthony will sometimes bring in snacks but it seems to rotate with others in the group sharing this, ‘responsibility’.

        This group reads books that are at least 20 years old or older. We have done “The Handmaids Tale”, “A Wrinkle in Time”, “Mrs. Dalloway”, and “Brave New World” to name a few. Each year Anthony comes up with a list of 100 books that he asks us to pull from for 25 titles. He then narrows it down to the 12 that we read through the next year.