Hits and Misses in Other Book Clubs

I wrote in my last post about one of my book clubs, the one I call the Best Book Club Ever. But I am also in two other book clubs at the moment, and they each have their benefits as well.

A year ago (in pre-pandemic days), I joined a new parish and began attending its book club. I wanted to start to get to know other parishioners, and I figured women who like to read would be interesting people with whom to become acquainted. I looked at the book club’s selections for prior years, to see what I’d already read and to get a common base for talking in the group with people I didn’t know. I’d read about half the books on their reading list.

Because of its church sponsorship, this group only reads books that are “approved,” though the approval process seems quite relaxed. The group has read several gory mysteries, as well as family sagas with premarital and extramarital affairs. This group also tries for one or two local authors each year, and there’s usually a pretty sappy Christmas story in the mix, but that’s all right.

The meetings are monthly on regular dates, but we skipped three meetings this year due to the pandemic, then turned to Zoom for a couple of months. During the summer, we had a couple of meetings outside in the church parking lot (lovely weather both evenings, though the mosquitoes thought so as well). We’re now back in the church building in a room set up for socially-distanced meetings.

Among the books that I’ve read with this group that I recommend enthusiastically are

• The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson (an engaging mix of memoir and history—hilarious for those of us who lived in the 1950s)
• A Man Called Ove. by Fredrick Backman (one of my favorite books of all time! And I’d read this with my work colleagues also)
• The Huntsman, by Whitney Terrell (a murder mystery set in Kansas City, which I liked because of the local color)
• Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens (bestselling murder mystery involving a woman who raised herself from childhood after her family abandoned her; my work colleagues read this one as well)

The biggest dud for me in this book club was Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation, by Cokie Roberts. I wanted to like Founding Mothers, because I loved Cokie Roberts on NPR and I liked several of her other books. But this one fell flat—it seemed to be merely a string of letters one after another by women who lived during the American Revolution. It didn’t feature enough of Ms. Roberts’s opinions to tie the letters and women together. Some themes emerged—many wives and daughters and mothers held their families and their livelihoods together while their husbands and fathers and sons built a government. But I wanted more organization and explanation than the book provided.

We’re in the process of selecting books for 2021 now. Based on the draft list, I’ll have read about half the books for next year before the year begins.

Then there is the third book club I’m in—a Middlebury College alumni group that discusses books online. It tends toward literary fiction and literary award-winners. It’s a recently formed group, and we’re only on our third book. The first book this group read was Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee, which I commented on in my last post. Our second book was A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles, which I’d already read, and is one of my favorite novels.

Now we’re reading Afterlife, by Julia Alvarez, a Middlebury alumna. (I’m still reading it, but I like it so far.)

The Middlebury group hasn’t had any misses yet in its selections, but days are early. I’m sure there will be a selection at some point that just doesn’t resonate with me. The good thing about an online group is that I can simply stop reading and no one will know. I have mostly been a lurker in this group so far, but I enjoy reading comments by other participants, many of whom are more knowledgeable about literature than I am.

As you can see, there is overlap in the books read in my three book clubs. That’s a good thing, or I’d never get them all read! I have read books for one book club that I’ve suggested for other groups, and I’m always glad to see books proffered by others that I can simply skim, because I’ve read them before. But a few—like A Gentleman in Moscow and Where the Crawdads Sing—have pulled me in again, and I’ve found myself rereading them because they are so enjoyable.

Do you reread books? What makes you want to reread a book?