Book club experience

Books and Beer

I was fortunate to attend a public library sponsored book discussion group that was held off-site at a local bar. “Books on Tap” as the group is called has been in existence since January 28, 2014. It has had great attendance and growing momentum. Why off-site? Why not! The non-traditional venue welcomes a different crowd than those that might want to come to the library. There were 19 participants which included eight men and eleven women. This is quite different from the vast majority of book clubs.  In 2008, the Readers' Advisory Committee surveyed book group participants across the country and results showed that “94 percent of groups characterized their groups as mostly female.”(McArdle, 2009) The location does mandate a minimum age of 21, but according to survey results, the majority of book clubs “are Baby Boomer(s) with 70 percent of respondents were between the ages of 40 and 65.” (McArdle, 2009) I would not consider myself an expert in age estimation, but I would guess the average age of participants to be under the age of 40.  

The books read have been either donated to the group as February’s selection, “Winesburg, Ohio” by Shewood Anderson was or filled through Novel Conversations. “Novel Conversations is a free statewide lending library. Indiana Humanities lends more than 450 titles, primarily fiction and biography, to reading and discussion groups all over Indiana, free of charge.” (Novel Conversations) The library receives as many copies as possible and have the book club members “sign them out.” The other members can try to borrow them through the library or purchase it. The selections are vast; however somewhat limited as there are not many new titles available. The leader mentioned that he was optimistic that the group’s popularity would probably sway the decision of being able to purchase different titles of discussion interest in the near future. The past books read by the group have been both fiction and non-fiction. There is an array of titles read that I had not personally ever heard of and out of the past 14 books read; I was only familiar with three of them. Books are chosen by participants ranking the selections presented to them from one to five in desire to read them.  

The discussion leader and the other members were all very welcoming and positive. It was a very comfortable atmosphere and inviting. The leader took command promptly at 6:30 pm and passed out a character list for the book and a half-sheet of discussion questions. The questions that were provided for the participants were structured to ignite great discussion; none involved simple yes or no answers. The bar has a small room off of the front that does not have a door. It has very tall ceilings and the acoustics are not very good for a large discussion. There are six tables with seating for four in the room. The discussions about the book were facilitated by those at the individual tables. 

The discussion leader moved from table to table to observe the discussions and offer some perspective. He gathered information from the small discussions to speak with the group about overall. It was difficult to hear and by the time the dinner crowd was rolling it, it was even more of a challenge. Regrettably, I had read the book for the following month and had nothing of value to contribute about the book. The couple that I sat with did not finish the book and were not too fond of it. The list of characters was provided because there was an unusually large number of characters for a novel that was 160 pages and it took place in the early 1900s and it was difficult for them to “get into.”

No food was provided but there was ice-water placed at each seat. The establishment has a nice menu and various types of beers for purchase at a reasonable cost. I genuinely enjoyed the experience and aspire to return.

References

McArdle, M. (2009). Book Group Therapy: A Survey Reveals Some Truths about Why Some Book Groups Work and Others May Need Some Time on the Couch. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 49(2), 122-125.

Novel Conversations | Indiana Humanities. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2015, from http://www.indianahumanities.org/programs/novel-conversations/