Book Clubs Matter: Guest post from She Reads: Melissa Hambrick

Every month, we tie a blindfold on one of our book club members. Then we spin her around in circles until she cries uncle, and send her topsy-turvy around the bookstore in a drunken stagger to pin the bookmark on the title. Wherever it lands is the book we choose.

Perhaps a bit extreme and slightly off the wall? Maybe. But choosing the perfect book for your club isn’t really a science, even though it feels that way sometimes. Everyone wants to get a turn—different people like different genres, and what is deeply literary to one may feel like slogging through mud to another. When one person loves a fun read, another might think it’s fluff. So an old-fashioned party game could do the trick in a pinch.

How do you discover those amazing reads that become book club classics, especially with Oprah now off network television? Here are a few things we’ve tried—maybe some will help your club come together:

Goodreads: A great website that connects you with fellow bibliophiles, Goodreads is the online equivalent of a friend pressing a book into your hot hands and saying, “You have GOT to read this.” On this site, I’m friends with several people who are in my book club, as well as friends from all over the country.  I’m even friends with a couple of authors now, after reading their books and giving them a nice review and rating. I can see what my friends are reading, and pick and choose from books they’ve read that look interesting. I’ve also been able to offer out questions to some of my favorite authors who come to Goodreads to do online chats…but so far, Ann Patchett has not taken me up on an offer to come join our book club here in Nashville, although I think we made a pressing case for it.

Online Book Clubs: Sites like SheReads.org and BeautyandtheBook.com (home of The Pulpwood Queens book club) are fantastic repositories for previously undiscovered authors and novels. Often, they offer author interviews and background about the book or author you might not read anywhere else. There are usually great giveaways and sometimes, as with BeautyandtheBook.com, getaways as well—like their annual Girlfriend Weekend. And couldn’t we all use that?

Other Books: For a while, we had a couple of rules for picking our monthly reads. First we said it had to be in paperback, because hardbacks were kind of pricey—and then that went by the wayside when everyone in our club ended up getting Kindles and Nooks. Another one of our rules that carried on for a while is that our next book had to, in some way, be a jumping off point from a previous book—either in theme, or setting. It makes for an interesting progression and great comparisons from month to month.

Food: Ah yes, part of the holy trinity of book club—the written word, inspiring conversation and amazing food. Although a book may inspire a menu, it’s possible to let your favorite foods inspire the choice of book, too. I’d also recommend The Book Club Cookbook (http://bookclubcookbook.com/) that pulls together two of my personal favorite things seamlessly. I think our club may soon have a themed dinner with recipes from some of our best-loved novels from the past few years using this book!

Bookstores: Our book club has been known to wrap up a wonderful evening by going to the bookstore as a group and wandering around. No one gets blindfolded. But once we get going, it’s hard to stop, of course—all of us girls and all of those books. It feels decadent. We’re like kids in a candy store. You might also consider signing up for newsletters or social media feeds from retailers big and small. For those of us here in Nashville, Parnassus Books (Ann Patchett’s new bookstore) sends out some great recommendations on their Facebook page, while I’ve also discovered some great new releases from Barnes & Noble’s emails.

Resign yourself to this: you’ll never make everyone happy. Few and far between are those books, like The Help, that everyone seems to love equally. More often than not, you’ll be a club divided—but isn’t that what makes for a great conversation? I’ve discovered some great authors and some of my favorite books by stretching myself beyond what I would have chosen on my own.

How does your book club make their reading picks?

As an added bonus of booky goodness, we've included a video of Ann Patchett on the Colbert Report (a nice American friend explained to our Canadian who doesn't watch TV what the Colbert Report is, but she still couldn't view the video because she lives in Canada. If you aren't in the US, likely you won't be able to view the video.) Enjoy!

Today's post comes from Melissa Hambrick, our book club contributor from our sister blog She Reads. This is the writer's opportunity to listen in on what is important to a book club, what gets readers hooked, keeps the reading, or turns them off. Enjoy!

A fine mist still blanketed the land in the early hours of that morning. A nearly palpable wave of bittersweet excitement passed over the group that had gathered, as last hugs and kisses were bestowed. Six women waved goodbye to their children, to their husbands, and climbed into the enormous vehicle that would take them away. The men exchanged uneasy laughter, the children running amongst them, still in pajamas. Four days. For some, those days would be long; for others, much too short. The doors closed, and an audible sigh escaped the lips of each of the six contained inside.

Bliss. Absolute bliss. Six moms, one Suburban and four days on the Gulf in Florida. The only rule was no McDonald’s; the only decisions were pool or beach, white or red? T his was our first ever book club girls’ getaway, and specifically a dream I’d had since walking into Sundog Books in Seaside, FL , a little over a year ago. After walking into this wonderful little bookstore in May of last year, I looked at my husband and said, “This is what I want for my 40th birthday. No party. I just want to come back here with my book club.”

So we celebrated for four days. We read. And talked. And sunbathed. And ate dark chocolate covered almonds for breakfast. Sometimes dreams do come true, even if you aren’t a Disney princess.

This month we had two books on our docket. W e chose State of Wonder by Ann Patchett as our regular monthly pick, but since we had an extra half a month in there before our trip, we also selected Before I Go to Sleep by first-time novelist SJ Watson. Two very different, but equally exciting and enjoyable reads.
If you haven’t yet read Nashville-based author Ann Patchett, you’re missing out. Put her on your ‘to read’ list, especially this one and her accla imed work Bel Canto. Those of you near us here in Nashville may have heard that she is actually opening an independent bookstore here at the end of the year, dubbed Parnassus Books. The demise of Borders, as well as our favorite indie bookstore Davis-Kidd Booksellers, has left our area lacking, and there’s no doubt that Patchett will come through for us bibliophiles with flying colors.

Sta te of Wonder actually owes some plot points to another well-known novella, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, but Patchett’s literary talents give the tale a whole new dimension. She also adds a decidedly feminist slant to the story, as well as more than a few twists, turns and subplots that leave the reader in awe by the end of the book. One of our bookies hadn’t yet had the chance to read it, and another clubber attempted to describe the story. But there was just no simple way to tell the plot, and we realized how Patchett had managed to seamlessly tell an amazingly complex story.
Marina Singh is a doctor working for a pharmaceutical company which is doing research in the Amazon. But the doctor in charge of this research, the nearly mythological Dr. Annika Swenson, has ceased communication. A turn of events leads Marina to the jungle to find out what has happened to Dr. Swenson, colleague Anders Eckman, and the research that has been nearly a decade in the making with no results. We all agreed that the beginning of State of Wonder was a bit slow, but as soon as Marina arrives in this foreign land, the layered plot builds and builds into an intricate, thoughtful and suspenseful novel.

We were all fascinated by Dr. Swenson, an artful piece of writing that has created a stunning character, thought-provoking and memorable. Easter is another precious character, and a powerful thread who ties the story together. We loved this book—but past that, I can’t tell you much more because there would just be too many spoilers.
And for a change of pace, we read a thriller—a suspenseful novel where not only do we as readers not know what is going on, neither does the main character. What would you do if you woke up one morning and found out that you had lost 25 years of your life? You couldn’t trust your memories, and maybe not even your husband, who you don’t recognize. You don’t remember your own child. In fact, every day when you wake up, you don’t remember the day before. (Interestingly, the author did not know about the Drew Barrymore/ Adam Sandler film 50 First Dates, but the daily amnesia is really the only plot similarity.)

SJ Watson (who most of our club totally thought was a wom an until we went to his blog, has created a fascinating first novel with Before I Go to Sleep, which has landed in the top ten of the New York Times bestseller list and is finding international acclaim. Watson’s main character, Christine, wakes up every day with no memory of the last, and only the journal she is keeping (and keeping secret from her husband, Ben) to remind her of who she is. She is able to unravel her past bit by bit, but we are always left wondering who to trust. The opening words in her journal proclaim “Don’t trust Ben.” But can we trust Christine?

Before I Go to Sleep kept us hanging on every page—a true testament to the author’s storytelling ability when you realize that with nearly every chapter, he has to retell Christine’s story, as she wakes up with no memory and has to rediscover it, yet again. As all of the details come together, it is surprising to find out exactly who she could trust—and in the end, the reader is left to decide: When Christine wakes up tomorrow, will she remember that this all happened?
As for us six ladies, we are thankful for our memories—especially those that we made together, sitting in the sun in Florida, and doubly so, now that school is starting, sport seasons are starting back up, and the “lazy” days of summer are drawing to a close. And you’d better bet that we’re already planning a trip back next year…if we can just hang on to our happy place until then!