Illustration by Jillian Tamaki
I’ve been invited to join book clubs, and while outwardly
I might politely smile, inwardly I heave. It’s a prospect
I find about as appealing as attending the Canadian Academic
Accounting Association’s annual Christmas party. (Although,
come to think of it, the CAAA might at least have decent booze.
I’m willing to bet the majority of book clubs are strictly
President’s Choice Chai (decaf) or at best, white wine – from
a large-sized bottle.)
The first time I was summoned actually pre-dated rampant usage
of the term “book club.” Back then I was slaving away in a
shiny new bookstore when my fellow overeducated-and-underpaid-for-the-work
colleagues invited me to join them in what they termed “a
book chat.” I declined. Was it not enough that I had to endure
40 hours a week with them in desultory conversations about
which books to “face out,” let alone spend miserable lunch
breaks together in something defined by that pantywaist word,
“chat”? My recalcitrance was duly noted, and suddenly I was
cold shouldered around the sink tap that passed as water cooler.
This instinctive aversion to the notion of book clubs springs
from a deep-rooted belief in the essence of the experience
of reading. (Does the phrase “solitary pleasure” ring any
pleasant associative bells?) Reading is the greatest of great
escapes. Reading is permission to simply be, to exist in another
world, the world of the book. But you can’t maintain that
Zen state when someone is wittering away about plot, tone
and setting as though they are the new holy trinity.
Book club advocates still reading at this point are likely
frothing about the obvious differences between reading and
discussing, jawing on and on about how “talking books” is
a pleasure unto itself. Sure it is. Just as discussing your
moron boss, or those bastards in the NHL, or the fine points
of Ukrainian politics no one ever talked about until last
November are also pleasures. Pleasures in passing. Pleasures
perhaps best shared with an intimate, as opposed to a cult
– whoops, a “club.” For example: Friend #1: “I just read that
fantastic The something Incident of the Dog in the Whosit.
But I don’t think you’ll like it, it has all these diagrams
where you’ll think there should be words.” Friend #2: “I laughed
myself stupid over the latest Shopaholic. Too bad
you don’t appreciate crap the way I do.”
This type of exchange is an organic pleasure, if you will,
and a useful transmission of information not requiring the
contrivance of reading a pre-ordained book and dutifully “going
to a meeting” to discuss its contents. The latter manufactures
your experience; it does a disservice to the book-seeking
heart. It puts that tender organ in danger of losing the pure
experience of reading, the spontaneous pleasure of talking
about what’s been read, the candy shop joy of choosing what
you alone will read next. Let’s face it: clubs of any kind
exist to homogenize opinion, or at the very least, tenaciously
mould the honest instincts of their members.
It would be fair at this point to acknowledge that yes, there
is a big difference between book clubs that meet in people’s
living rooms and book clubs that are simply covert arms of
the publishing industry. Take, for example, bookclubs.ca –
anyone notice the teensy Random House link at the bottom of
the page?
There is also a difference between the power wielded by Oprah
or “Richard and Judy” (Britain’s “perma-tanned first couple
of sofa television,” as the Independent would have it), and
the clout of the Type “A” personality in your book club.
Nonetheless, your cute little ol’ book club is not necessarily
exempt from the canny wiles of the publishing industry. Book
club consultants and books telling you how to run a book club
are just a small sign of this greater force at work. Another,
those annoying “reader’s guides” that began popping up in
trade paperback editions of “women’s fiction” about five years
ago. These guides cost publishers more money to produce –
but they lead to greater sales, since book clubs tend to choose
them over a guide-less edition. Most publishers target book
clubs on their websites for the same reason. Book clubs are
being gently led to the well for a long drink of whatever
publishers want them to swallow. Because publishers know that
the key to selling books over a long period of time is entirely
in the hands, or mouths, of average humble readers – a.k.a.
word of mouth. What better conduit than book clubs?
Should you require scientific proof you might want to turn
to the American Physical Society’s journal, Physical Review
Letters, which published a report last year tracing the commercial
success of books on Amazon.com’s Top 50 List from 2002 to
2004. They discovered the effect of book clubs on sales was
of greater financial significance than the hoopla created
by a major marketing campaign. The latter goes like this:
you see a gargantuan advert for, say, The Oxford History
of Western Music, so naturally you run out and buy all
six volumes. But once the ad stops running oddly enough no
one is chattering about the OHWM, so sales plummet. The book
club effect is the opposite, long-term and insidious. Or,
as one of the report’s researchers concluded: “If you manage
to convince a small handful of small book clubs, the likelihood
of really penetrating the network of buyers and selling a
lot is higher.” I rest my case.
Once upon a time, back in the heady sales figure days following
the first Oprah book club phenom, I was in a pub enjoying
a quiet drink, unaware that Ann-Marie MacDonald, author of
the Oprah’d Fall on Your Knees, was doing same.
A woman of a certain age and of a certain gushiness approached
her.
“My book club did you, and we loved it,” she genuflected.
I waited for MacDonald to ask, “Why didn’t you just read it?”
But instead she merely smiled. Of course, considering the
financial consequences of being “done” by Oprah, maybe she’d
decided being “done” by any club was a bit of all right.
Presumably this encounter left the author feeling chuffed.
It left me feeling gloomy. Almost as gloomy as when I read
the words of Sue Zimmerman, 50, in an article about book clubs
published recently by California’s Ventura County Star.
“Sometimes you need to be in a book club because you’re reading
and reading and you just don’t get it,” said Zimmerman. “That’s
what clubs do. They help you get it.”
If I met Sue Zimmerman, 50, I’d suggest otherwise. Because
maybe if you “just don’t get it,” you’re not necessarily meant
to. Or maybe you should just read another book, one that you
do “get,” one that you actually want to read.
So consider yourself warned. Beware of book club fanatics:
marionettes gently dancing for the publishing industry’s puppeteers.
These people want to tell you what to read, when, and how
to read it.
Letters:
I am pretty ambivalent when it comes to the value of book
clubs but in their defense I'd argue that they offer readers
the opportunity to savour books chosen by their members, each
of whom has his/her own taste and so brings a little variety
to the reading life. As a former book clubber myself, I enjoyed
the opportunity to try something a little different from the
high-end literary fiction that is my personal cup o' tea.
And, being a real reader myself, and knowing that all too
often after reading a book that totally rocks your world,
you find yourself in the position that you haven't really
anyone to share your enthusiasm with. Book clubs can sometimes
provide that kind of space and I think it's not to be mocked.
I also wanted to note that never in my book clubs did we ever
drink the kind of plonque your columnist suggests is the typical
fare of book clubbers -- in point of fact, it was the high-end
wines and delicious meals that I finally did my last book
club in!
Jeffrey Canton
Toronto, ON
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Hooray for Li Robbins. I have resisted Book Clubs since
they became fashionable. They reminded me of high school English
lessons. I can see their value as a social outing (perhaps)
or if that is what it takes to get one reading but I think
the joy of reading is the private pleasure. I do enjoy discussion
with a friend or colleague who happens to have read the same
book but it would not be the same if it were an orchestrated,
fixed time duty.
Jeni Darling
Dundas, Ontario
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I was a member of a book club for several years but our
club was quite loose and disorganized, with a "type A" at
the helm for any of the real discussions. Mostly we just made
excuses for why we didn't read "the book" and drank wine.
I embarrassed our club early on by suggesting "Spanky" by
I forget who now -- essentially a trashy sexy vampire novel
which "lowered the calibre" of our club, but certainly generated
some heated discussions. (Mainly about how we should pick
more "literate" books) Pah! Things went on for a year or two
after my dressing down, until, that is, the members one by
one began having babies. Then it became a mother's club and
those of us not interested in that pastime dropped out from
the sheer boredom of listening to endless tales of the trials
and tribulations of motherhood. From what I hear it is still
limping along and heading ever so much closer to your article's
description.
Stephanie
Toronto, Ontario
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Li Robbins seems to assume that book clubbers are mindless
book sheep, confined to reading only what the limits of their
club provides. Most of the book clubbers I know - including
one book editor - read a number of books each month. Most
provide the solitary pleasure Robbins mentions. One is read
for the book club, which provides the camaraderie of a group
of people brought together over a common interest. Like joining
a softball team or a choir or a writing group. I suppose Robbins
would scorn them all. Robbins feels she was shunned by her
co-workers for refusing to join their club. I don't suppose
it would instead have anything to do with the bitter contempt
for them she shows in her reasons for doing so?
Brent Se
Hubbards, Nova Scotia
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Obviously, you have never been to a session of OUR book
group hidden deep in the valleys of the iconoclastic Kootenays.
Anyone fearless to attend can join. None of us read the same
book (we're far too unruly for that); we present our well-thought
out (or wacky) ideas on books written by authors that range
from Terry Pratchett to George Eliot; discuss the aliens,
explorers, repressed Victorian ladies, drug addicts, and off-beat
characters that appear on the pages; argue, interrupt each
other, laugh, shout; borrow each other's books; sprinkle crumbs
and spill coffee on the host's rug (which usually is no stranger
to crumbs and coffee anyhow). We troop out the door, minds
on fire with new thoughts and new ideas, and carry on to one
of the town's restaurants for lunch. Waitresses cringe and
patrons look up in alarm. There we continue to harangue, enlighten,
and laugh with and at each other, the conversation usually
switching between books and films, -- and occasionally --
our own lives. Let Random House or anyone else try to control
us -- I think not!
Barbara MacPherson
Nakusp, B.C.
More from this Author
Li Robbins
- Book Club Virgin (And Proud Of It)
- The scorn of the solitary reader