Thursday, September 22, 2005

book club blues

I was always reluctant to join a book club, because I was in grad school (isn't that just one big, expensive book club?) and because I feared I couldn't make the transition from name-dropping Deleuze and Derrida to chatting about film adaptation casting. Upon moving to L.A., I joined my friend's book club after hearing about its rigor and - I'll admit it - the food. I was happily surprised by the level of conversation and by the fact that I escaped this kind of badinage described by Courtney Sullivan:

If I’m going to spend any time reading for a group discussion, I want there to actually be a discussion. Last month, for example: The cute redhead (Warner Books) tried to mix it up a bit when she suggested we read Tom Perrotta’s Little Children. I actually finished that one. But the conversation rapidly devolved into what it was like to grow up in suburban New Jersey, and whether Reese Witherspoon was better in Election or Legally Blonde 2.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Chris,
I was in a book club for about a year and half. We started out well with Jane Austin's "Sense and Sensibility" and a few other classics- but a year and a half later it had divulged into a social night with the girls. I finally had enough though when the chosen book was a puff piece of trash "Adventures of a Shopaholic".
Too bad....

Krista