I have book club envy. Every time Town&Style features a book club, I feel like a loser. Am I the only person in St. Louis who hasn’t been invited to join one? I mean, come on, I know how to read.
I’ve tried to talk my friends into starting a book club and they won’t commit. These same women all pass along books they’ve read, discuss current events and always have time for a quick get-together. So, I decided that perhaps instead of a book club I could convince them to form a magazine club. We would pick out one article, read and discuss it. How much of a commitment would that be? Fifteen minutes at the most, and then the rest of the evening could be devoted to snacks and cocktails!
The first meeting went well. Most people read the article. We spent 30 minutes discussing it and the rest of the time drinking and laughing. The second meeting, only about three people bothered to read the article (about sibling birth order). You can imagine which ones they were. (OK, all the youngest read the article.) The only issue was, everyone had an opinion. I was annoyed; I mean, we were annoyed, that the others would not just sit back and listen to what we had to say since they didn’t even bother to do the homework. (It was only four pages!) After that, no more magazine club.
I tried to form another club. This one was called the No Book Book Club or NBBC for short. This was a way for my friends to tell their families they were going to book club but were actually just going out to have dinner and drinks. Most people would refer to this as ‘girls’ night out’ but I really wanted to be a member of a book club. This one lasted a little longer, but then again people got busy and the club disbanded.
Recently, I stumbled into a new bookstore, The Novel Neighbor, in Webster Groves. I love independent bookstores and was hoping to find out that book clubs were becoming a thing of the past because no one had time for them, everyone was too busy, just not my friends. Sadly, I was wrong.
Holland, the owner, told me book clubs are alive and well in St. Louis. Her bookstore has a special carousel of books devoted just to clubs. They also have created bingo cards that can be used by book clubs to help determine their next read. The bingo boxes, all related to books, include things like ‘one- word title, ‘ ‘animal on the cover’ and ‘set in the place where you live.’ Imagine being in a book club that not only reads books but combines it with game playing—nirvana!
But alas, I don’t belong to a book club. Holland did suggest that I would be welcome to join many of the existing ones at The Novel Neighbor, but it is just not the same. I will continue to read about book clubs in Town&Style, and in the meantime I will play book bingo by myself.
Normally, I give you my email address so you can send me comments, but I am afraid someone will feel bad and invite me to join their book club or worse, no one will. So no address this week. Instead, if you are ever in Webster Groves, stop by and see your friendly, neighborhood bookseller, Holland. She has plenty of book suggestions for those of us not in book club.