The December meeting of the book club I attend is the one meeting when the women really dress up. There is the Christmas sweater bought in travels to Germany, a swanky scarf gotten at a local fair, a dress held for special occasions, and a red jacket with a Christmas wreath pen attached to the lapel. The hostess decorates every corner of the house with wreaths, angels, and even Christmas plates in the dining room breakfront. A collection of nutcrackers guards the stairs leading up to the bedrooms from the front door.
Dinner is served on China with linen napkins and candles lit in the center of the tables surrounded with poinsettias. Each member of the book club brings a dish, prearranged with the hostess. We’ve been meeting and having this December dinner for so long that the hostess can recite what each person usually volunteers to bring. For the new members, it is quite a decision on how to work in a dish with 20 other members. I make a Christmas cake.
After dinner, we choose dessert and coffee and make our way into the den to propose books for the next year. Going around the room, members suggest one or two books they would like to put on the list. We try to sell our choices with a book blurb to entice and get votes. We have one member who has become in charge of writing up the booklist. That “secretary” member never really volunteered, and I don’t remember ever voting to have her take on that role, it just happened over time, and we have been pleased with that. There are no other officers, or people who have responsibilities, oh, except after each member ranks the books for their top 11, a retired mathematics professor does the math and comes up with the 11 books for the following year.
At the January meeting we discuss the 11th book from the previous year and then decide who will host the meetings for the coming year, which months they will host, and who will lead the discussion on the book for that meeting. This is quickly done, and our “secretary” sends out the list to the members.
Each book club handles how to choose books, when to meet, who can join, and how many can join in different ways. People join a book club for various reasons. Book clubs have meaning. Research online indicates many benefits that can be listed and checked off. However, I want to argue that the benefits cannot be listed so easily. Yes, there is a diversity in the types of books chosen, and a more thoughtful reading of a book, with socialization and making friends as a strong part of being in a book club. But there is also history in a book club, a subtleness that is replete with rituals and traditions, like our December dinner. Leadership roles develop in navigating the contrarians or engaging the members who don’t speak up readily. I believe there are two benefits that outweigh many of the published benefits: first, choosing books that are offered by everyone in the group to encourage participation; each member comes prepared to share a book idea, we honor that. Second, reading books by local authors and having them visit and talk about their book is always a crowd gatherer with folks who may not be regulars coming to hear. In the past two years we have had two guest authors and a third guest who was a relative of the person we had been reading about.
“The Darkest Midnight in December” was suggested at our agenda meeting in December. I was nervous. What if my book club friends decided not to include my book. I care about these women and what they think. And our math expert will post the level each book got in votes. When the list finally came out, my book was second just below the Pulitzer Prize winning Percival Everett’s book, “James.” I’ll take that and was thrilled.
Ultimately, the purpose of the book club is to discuss the book, that needs someone who must read the book, research, and plan the discussion questions. Working members, busy members, or traveling members of a book club often are limited in the time needed to prepare a discussion of the chosen book. Therefore, publishers and authors are now listing discussion questions for book clubs. There are online groups that provide discussion questions. Some books have the questions printed at the end of the book. It was the meeting where I discussed my own book to my book club friends that I realized how important book discussion questions might be in talking about a book.
My novels, “Spancil Hill” and “The Darkest Midnight in December,” now have discussion questions that can be used by book clubs. These discussion questions have been created to focus on how the books contribute to Irish heritage. Take a look, they are on my website under the book tab for each book.
Leara Rhodes 