Books Club
or: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Conversations with Friends
Hi y’all!
A whole month of Book Notes Substack! It went by too fast. I wrote a short round up of February, which you can read here if you missed it.
I’ve never been a part of a traditional book club. I haven’t even tried to join one. In part, it’s because I don’t trust other people to chose books that I’ll enjoy. Recently though, especially as I’ve started reading more non-fiction, I’ve seen the merits. It would be nice to have someone else to bounce my ideas off of, a group who could help me with some of the more challenging ideas that a book presents, or another person to build a reading list with. I’ve been flirting with the idea of starting a Mark Fisher1 “reading group”—which I suppose is just a fancy way of saying book club.2 Or maybe I just want a guided reading group of one: I’ve recently realized I could just surf through course listings from my alma mater and ask the profs for their syllabus.
Currently, the closest things I have to a book club are my two friends Jesse and Julie, who are pretty much the only two people I know whose literary tastes I unequivocally trust. Even though our tastes don’t entirely overlap, they both know my tastes (and I think I know theirs) well enough to consistently give perfect recs.3 If you follow my Instagram, you know half of my “stories” are just screenshots of texts with either Jesse or Julie about books and book gossip.
These tiny book clubs—book clubs of two—are my favorite. It’s nice to have long, winding, off-topic and kinda-chaotic conversations about a book you enjoyed (or even a book you hated). Talking about books is intimate. I love when the same passage sticks out to both my friend and me. I love when my friend illuminates a passage in a way I hadn’t considered. I’ve always thought that the best books are good starting off points—they prompt you to think creatively and to produce creative work. And having a good discussion is both creative and productive and collaborative—which is to say, a conversation is something you create together, something you produce together. I’ve always felt that good conversation is just as worthy to me as any more tangible creative work.4
In 2018, Mathilde, Dana and I lived in a one bedroom apartment in FiDi. Dana and I slept in what was once a living room, while Mathilde took the bedroom. We didn’t own any furniture besides our beds and a small table—not that there was enough room in the apartment for a couch anyway. We strung $5 Christmas lights up around our rooms rather than buy $50 lamps and wasted our evenings gossiping in semi-darkness on each other’s beds. We were all newly employed, new to the city, and spending most of our money on rent. And on the last Wednesday of every month, we’d put all of our Christmas lights in Mathilde’s room, push her bed against the wall, and invite about twenty friends to sit with us on the floor and discuss reading at our monthly Books Club.
Books Club is a book club where no one reads the same book. Everyone shows up with a different book—a book that they just finished, that they just started, that they read ten years ago, that they loved, that they hated—and they share a little about it with the rest of the club. Sometimes this leads to a brief discussion of the book, or its themes, or other books it seems similar to. Sometimes we run off on horribly long tangents that have nothing to do with reading. During one memorable evening, we talked about ant trails for like, 30 minutes.
Books Club was always very boozy. Mathilde or I would run to the Trader Joe’s Wine Shop on 14th to pickup 6 to 8 bottles of Two-Buck Chuck—effectively a half-bottle per person. Our guests brought snacks—usually cheese, crackers, chips, and almost always humus—and a wide array of books to discuss. The only real rule in Books Club was that we weren’t snobs; any book was a good book. Every genre was represented from The Catcher in the Rye to Gucci Mane’s autobiography, from The Flame Throwers to YA fantasy novels.
When we started Books Club, all of my friends in NYC were people I knew from college.5 Now, during the pandemic, it’s easy for me to say, Oh, I’d be meeting tons of people and making all sorts of new friends if it weren’t for COVID, but in reality, solidifying friendships in a city where everyone is terribly busy was a little daunting.
But our monthly Books Club helped change that. If I met someone at a bar, a coffee shop, on Instagram, wherever, I’d invite them to the Books Club. Friends of friends were always welcome. Because we didn’t make people commit to a book, or even showing up a second time, it was fairly easy to convince strangers to show up to at least one meeting.6 It was a great low pressure way to get to know people, and I solidified a lot of friendships (hi Rachel) and got to introduce friends who might never have otherwise met to each other.
I also discovered a ton of great books that I doubt I would have been exposed to outside of the club, and it was really fascinating to see how different reading trends tore through the group. Memoir ended up being easily our most popular genre (which surprised me, though I think it shouldn’t, as I’ve never met anyone as strongly anti-memoir as I am) and a few books made reoccurring appearances—A Little Life and My Year of Rest & Relaxation both were passed around the room.
In many ways, Books Club felt like the IRL version of “bookstagram.”7 A ton of people talking over each other about a ton of different books; occasionally holding a meaningful and compelling conversation; but, more often than not, just inanely spouting non-sequiturs in a desperate bid to be noticed. If this sounds critical of bookstagram, good. In real life though, I actually don’t mind this behavior. It’s pretty charming when your friends drunkenly ramble about a book they hated, I kinda love it when someone can’t help but breathily acknowledge when a book they’ve read introduced, and, because I love drama, I’m totally down for a little bit of jockeying for the intellectual spotlight. It gives Dana and I something to gossip about afterwards.
I really miss Books Club. We held one virtual Books Club over the pandemic, but it wasn’t the same—though maybe that’s just because we held it one Saturday afternoon, so we didn’t get to hear one of Logan’s tipsy-but-very-brilliant rants (I miss those a lot, Logan!)
Through this blog, I’ve met so many wonderful people that are states and countries away, people who I’ll probably never have a chance to invite to sit on my floor and drink cheap wine. And I have a feeling that Zoom Books Club might actually work better when held between people who have never been in the same room. If you’d be interested in participating in a Books Club via Zoom, shoot me an email (booknotesblog@gmail.com). Honestly, I’m not sure yet if I’ll host one, but you’ll be the first to know if I do.
And of course, if it does happen, a personal bottle of cheap wine isn’t necessary, but it is encouraged.
xoxo
Book Notes
I know; how trendy!
Book Club: brings to mind suburban moms on white couches drinking chilled wine and talking about tear-jerking historical fiction. Reading Group: academic, serious, non-fiction maybe with a philosophical or activist angle. But at the end of the day, both are just a bunch of nerds discussing books and trying to one up each other. Like the difference between a diary and a journal: there isn’t a difference, the terms are just gendered. Cool!
Julie and Jesse, I should note, have never met, despite how much I know they would like each other. It’s a shame!
In the past, Caleb has phrased a similar sentiment more eloquently, but I can’t remember exactly what he said. Idk, insert something about flow state.
To be fair, that’s pretty much still the case, especially among my close friends.
Shout out to our regulars though: Olek, Logan, Riley, Siri, Rachel, and Jesse usually held down the fort <3
What book bloggers on Instagram call themselves and their community. I hate this name, which is why I put it in quotes. I mostly just think it is corny and beneath me as a Very Serious Book Blogger.
I LOVE this idea. I might have to force my friends to try this post-pandemic.