This weekend, my book club of two years had its first in-person meeting. We operate under unusual principles. My friend Heather and I decided we weren’t reading enough new books because hardcovers are expensive, and the wait for them at the library is often long, so we created a book club designed to solve that problem. We decided we could each spring for one hardcover book a season (or paperback, since not everything comes out in hardcover). Either way, they’d be brand new books, and each of us would choose the one we wanted to read. We each invited one friend to join us. Now, once a quarter, the four of us get together on Zoom to tell each other about the books we’ve read (without spoilers). Then everyone’s hardcover book is available for borrowing by the others.
The four of us, along with three of our partners, gathered on Cape Cod for a special two-day, in-person book club meeting. The remnants of Hurricane Debby were blowing a hot wind the afternoon we arrived and set the window shades clacking overnight. The next morning, a gentle but persistent rain was falling. We had our coffee and make-your-own breakfast and eventually settled in on the couches and chairs around a square coffee table for a long, bookish conversation.
Heather’s husband Rick was especially delighted because our weekend coincided with what would have been his mother’s 100th birthday. She’d hosted gatherings of friends from academia to talk about ideas here on the Cape herself.
Our conversation was long and a little bit rambling. As we took turns sharing what we’d read, we talked about the fact that a book can be both beautifully written and emotionally difficult. We talked about how stories work (and don’t), about first person versus third person, about expectations and how they can derail a first reading. We talked about titles and covers and endings. We spun a web of connections over who had read the same authors and the same books, and as each person finished telling something about their book, copies were loaned and borrowed. It was a delightful morning.
Cape Cod is a favorite destination for my family. We spent many summers camping here and occasionally stayed in a little motel on the highway. It felt good to be back after a couple of years’ absence in the way it feels to return to a familiar place as if you’ve never left. When the rain cleared, we did some shopping, then regrouped for bike rides and pond swims. Dinner was seafood at the harbor, followed by a brilliant pink sunset shared with dozens of other people who congregated on the bay as if enacting some communal ritual. When we went to bed that night, our books were still scattered across the coffee table.
As far as I’m concerned, few social activities are better than discussing books with friends—in this case, both old friends and new ones. It turns what is essentially a solitary activity into a social one. A book club doesn’t have to be a monthly meeting with a shared book and a leader and a list of discussion questions. It can be whatever you want it to be. It can be you and one friend on a phone call. If you don’t have a book club, that’s a perfectly good place to start. You don’t have to share everything you read with someone else, but sharing a book together is like breaking bread together. We did that, too.
Here's what we read and shared this weekend:
Mark: The Hunter, by Tana French. Second in a mystery series set in a small Irish town, praised as a page-turner with well-developed primary characters.
Heather: Long Island, by Colm Tóibín. Recommended for its unique premise—an immigrant woman living among her husband’s family discovers he has fathered a child with another woman and the baby is about to be deposited at her house—and for Tóibín’s skilled writing, though perhaps not for its ending.
Suzanne: So Late in the Day, by Claire Keegan. Highly recommended because Keegan is a masterful writer, and worth reading despite difficult emotional content.
Dave: Table for Two, by Amor Towles. A series of stories and a novella by the author of A Gentleman in Moscow, with entirely different but compelling subject matter.
Kathy: This Strange Eventful History, by Claire Keegan. The enjoyably character-driven story of a French family expelled from Algeria after that country’s independence, left wandering the world without a true home.
Brad: The Sky Was Ours, by Joe Fassler. A smart and creative retelling of the Daedalus myth with unexpected turns.
Rick: The Books of Jacob, by Olga Tokarczuk. A complex interwoven story of trade routes and histories by the brilliant Nobel Prize-winner.
Thank you for this post which was full of great news and ideas. First, congratulations on the way you celebrated the milestone moment of getting together in person.
I also liked hearing about how you approached the issue of buying expensive, new hard copies.
Further, I enjoyed the varied comments on the books you selected, and especially your plan to recycle them among yourselves. That sounds like a win-win situation for all.👏📚👍
I’ll echo Keegan and add Tokarczuk and Fassler to my TBR pile. Looks like the weather improved!