What’s Wrong with Book Clubs?
It’s certainly okay to pick up a book simply for the pleasure involved. I find myself taking a slightly different approach. I prefer to read with purpose. A lot of people in book clubs aren’t reading with purpose. What does it mean to read with purpose? Not all books were written for all people to pick up at any time. Your brain and hence your reading experience will benefit most when you read material your mind says you need now. Pick and choose what you are craving at the moment, even if it’s not a work your neighbor tells you is a “must read.” The question then comes down to, how to read with purpose? The short answer is, read what you are curious about at the moment.
One way to do that is to read books around a topic that you are interested in. This approach will help you to link knowledge and absorb what you are reading more deeply. This could even mean bypassing good books, or even leaving some books unfinished, that’s okay. Life is short. Dedicate the time you have for reading to a higher purpose. There is no reason to read a book that does not have something that increases our knowledge or gives us some insight that we are seeking when we reach the end.
Now that I have that off my chest, I will say I occasionally attend my neighborhood book club meeting. I don’t do it for the reasons stated above simply because the group is usually not reading works I would have chosen. I do it to be a good neighbor. Interaction of this sort is another form of nourishment, it’s just not one that feeds my curiosity or enhances my knowledge of myself or some topic that is exciting to me.