Putting Your Book on Facebook for Others to Read
What Makes a Good Book Society Read?
Whether yous've been a member of a volume club for a long time, only joined your local affiliate of a Silent Book Lodge, became a new member of Book of the Month or — similar me — simply decided reading consistently is one of your hands achievable new twelvemonth's resolutions, finding the right title tin can be a flake of a challenge.
I'thou part of three dissimilar book clubs, each with different levels of commitment, and I merely read whatever has been chosen about one-half of the time, and that's being generous. Sometimes I don't feel like spending time with a particular title — or author. The more participants a book club has, the more difficult it is to choose a novel that'll appeal to and satisfy everyone involved.
"We think the best volume club books are the ones you keep thinking most long later on you've turned the last folio — the ones that make you lot ask every friend and family member, 'Have you lot read…?' merely so you tin talk about it," say the folks at the online bookstore AbeBooks.
I couldn't agree more with that. Fifty-fifty though in that location'due south no perfect answer to what makes for the great book club fit, here are a few additional tips that could help you choose that next memorable championship:
- Length matters. Even though I devoured Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Goldfinch, the members of ane of my book clubs didn't appreciate that I suggested it every bit a read. I accept the suspicion that the fact that Tartt's contemporary mystery is 771 pages long didn't help my case. Nosotros've since established a books-no-longer-than-300ish-pages dominion.
- Genre matters. If your book guild is themed or devoted to one genre or subject, stick to information technology. If you're a readers' collective who dig political memoirs, don't branch out into romantic literature and vice versa. If your book club doesn't have a theme though, find it. If you're open to anything — fiction, not-fiction, science books, essays, thrillers, best-sellers — you risk alienating office of the membership. Ane of my book clubs has that "anything goes" motto and mostly I but don't even start whatever is supposed to be read that month. Even though the openness of the grouping immune me to enjoy Simone de Beauvoir's feminist manifesto The Second Sex or Octavia E. Butler's dystopian novel The Parable of the Sower, I merely knew Blockchain Craven Subcontract was non for me.
- Don't frown upon acknowledged or popular books. They're popular for a reason and they tend to make for safe choices when it comes to book clubs and conversation topics at parties — not that nosotros're celebrating or assembling much lately, only one can only hope to practise it once again soonish. There'south nothing similar deciding to read Amanda Gorman'south poetry the same year everyone else is doing it or diving into Brit Bennett's The Vanishing One-half alee of its HBO accommodation. There's aught wrong with starting Sally Rooney'south Normal People after you lot've watched the show on Hulu and everyone else has already read it.
- If yous run out of ideas near what to read, cheque what Oprah Winfrey has suggested over the years, what Reese Witherspoon is up to, the suggestions from Barnes & Noble Book Club or Goodreads' latest Choice Awards Winners. Sometimes it's just expert to know what other readers are enjoying. If you keep seeing The Last Thing He Told Me past Laura Dave everywhere, maybe that means your book lodge volition enjoy information technology too.
- Contempo releases make for fewer surprises and a amend understanding of the current cultural sensibilities. In my search for great adventure reads, I gave both Jules Verne'southward Around the World in Lxxx Days (1872) and Rafael Sabatini'due south Captain Blood (1922) a try. Both were problematic and I concluded up abandoning the 2d one entirely. I'm not saying read simply recently published stuff, merely be aware that certain content with inapppropriate or outdated depictions of race, gender, class or sexual orientation can trigger readers.
- And recall that it's perfectly OK to non stop a book — you don't even have to start reading it in the showtime place. Choosing a title that will please yous every single fourth dimension is daunting. Doing it when there's a whole grouping of people involved is an impossible task. The power of a volume club is to socialize and gather effectually a table — or Zoom meeting or a patch of grass in the park, in COVID times. You lot tin can even make things easier for your co-members and opt for the cheat method we apply at Ask's book club: we're selecting books that accept too been adapted into movies. Don't judge us — sometimes we like chatting about a book fifty-fifty if we've just watched the picture show.
Source: https://www.ask.com/culture/what-makes-good-book-club-read?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740004%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex