Book Club Experience:

For my book club experience, I attended a club meeting at the library where I work. It is a club that meets regularly (once a month) to discuss a predetermined book. One of my coworkers from the reference department (I’m in circulation) organizes the club meetings and chooses the book. Extra copies of the book are obtained through interlibrary loan so that club participants do not need to purchase the book, which is one great thing about having the club meet at the library. 

I did tell the club members that I was observing their meeting for a class assignment just so that everyone knew why I was there and why I was not actively participating. Some of the members recognized me from the library anyway, so I felt it was easier to tell them. 

The book they were discussing was Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman. It is a nonfiction book about the two Victorian era female journalists competing against each other to see who could make it around the distance of the globe fastest. 

The meeting was led by my coworker who asked questions and generally facilitated the group. He had a set of pre-written questions just in case conversation came to a standstill, but he didn’t really need to rely on them as the members really seemed to enjoy the book and were eager to discuss it. He did get through most of his questions before time ran out, but they didn’t seem like a crutch to keep the discussion going. This group meets monthly and doesn’t usually get new members, so they all seemed very comfortable with one another. I think that really helped the dynamic of the meeting.

The types of questions that were asked were not simple yes or no questions. Some of them dealt with putting yourself in the protagonists’ places and how would you have dealt with that or how would you have done things differently? Since the story takes place so long ago, I found it difficult to think about what I would’ve done. I was also having a little trouble keeping up since I hadn’t read the book.

Other questions were linked between the race itself and what the race stood for (women’s equality, feminism), comparisons between Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, questions centered around the modern inventions highlighted in the book like the railroads and steamships, who did you want to see win the race in the end?

All of the members of the club participated in the discussion. Some seemed to have more to say than others which is always the case in those sorts of settings. No one was particularly shy though, I think because they all knew each other and many seemed to be friends. There was one member who I recognized as a regular patron that seemed to want to talk the most out of the group. She is the same way at the circulation desk, often trapping staff in conversations. When I saw she was in attendance, I wondered how it would go, but my coworker seemed to do a good job of not letting her totally monopolize the conversation and the other members of the group must have known about her love of talking because they would also cut her off at times, or talk right over her. 

The meeting took place in a small conference room we have in our reference department which is the regular meeting spot for the club. There are only around twelve people maximum that attend the meetings so sometimes a couple of extra chairs are required but usually they can fit everyone. The atmosphere was friendly and welcoming. No one seemed to be bothered by the fact that I was there and that I would be writing about the experience for a class. They are mostly older people (some from our Friends of the Library group) so I don’t think I made them self-conscious and a few of them were curious as to what I was studying and what class the assignment was for.

Snacks and drinks were not provided, and they apparently never have them because they are not allowed in the conference room. No one seemed put out by the fact that there wasn’t refreshments and the meetings don’t typically run very long, usually an hour to an hour and a half.

My coworker said he tries to pick thought-provoking books that are not necessarily best-sellers, but if there is a lot of buzz surrounding a book and the members of the club would like to read it, then he assigns those books. For example, they read Where the Crawdads Sing a few months ago. They don’t read only fiction or nonfiction but switch off regularly. My coworker tries to read different genres and when he comes across something particularly good, he will suggest it to the club to see if there is interest in reading it. 

Overall, I thought it was a fun and informative experience. I have never been in a book club before or been to a meeting of one, so it was all pretty new to me. The book they discussed sounded very good and it is now on my list to read. I think once I do read it, I might read it a little differently since I am now more informed about the story and the time period it took place in.