Week 6: Reflection
We discussed book clubs, do's and don'ts, Socratic Seminars, and how to implement them. I found the discussion about our own perceptions of book clubs to be interesting. I've never participated in one, though I have participated in lively discussions in literature classes, which seems to be similar. The one book club I've known of was actually a group of men I knew who read contemporary literary fiction and discussed it periodically. They missed literary discussions like they had participated in in college, so formed a group of like-minded people from their circle of acquaintances and made it happen. I've known quite a few people who talked about forming a book club, but never took the initiative.
I believe that there's a desire for lively discussion, whether it's of books, movies, or shorter works, but there's no argument to the fact that people's preconceived notions about book clubs contribute to a reluctance to participate. Perhaps beginning a new marketing strategy or empowering patrons to work with librarians to organize a discussion group would be ways of changing people's minds about book clubs. I don't know.
Week 7: Readings
It seems that most people in my reading group chose fiction. "Darkness" is a webcomic, though I didn't investigate further to see if it is part of an established series or a stand-alone. Honestly, it was not to my taste, but I'm looking forward to hearing what others got out of it. "Donkey Skin" is a fairy tale. I don't think I've read it before, but one of my comfort books (Deerskin, by Robin McKinley) is based on it, so it felt familiar. I'm going to have to work to keep my thoughts about the book out of the discussion of the fairy tale. At any rate, with the almost-incest, fairy godmother, voyeurism, and love at first sight in the story, I'm sure we'll have plenty to talk about. "Cinnamon" was the story I found most interesting, also told in the style of a myth or legend. (I think it's the first thing I've read by Neil Gaiman. Don't judge) I'm definitely going to have to give everything a few more reads before I feel comfortable talking about the pieces. I have a feeling I'll be pretty quiet during the comic discussions anyway, though.
This exercise so far has driven home the importance of building a book club around common interests and tastes, and I'm looking forward to seeing how all of this works out tomorrow.
Even though you say you want to keep Deerskin out of the Donkeyskin discussion, I would be interested to hear about it. I was really fascinated by the details in the annotations about changes made to the story in later versions and why the annotator doesn't think the story is told as much anymore. If that comes up in our discussion, it would be cool to hear about this modern adaptation of the tale.
ReplyDeleteI, too, adore Deerskin, even though the Robin McKinley version is so different from the Charles Perrault fairytale. It kind of takes the hints in the fairytale and blows them up, with classic Robin McKinley female character building.
ReplyDeleteI think the point that you make about the word "club" is really valid. I wonder if it's a throw-back to a bygone era when clubs were not connoted with children but were places for people of similar interests to do things together. There were bike clubs and mandolin clubs and chess clubs and all kinds of clubs. I agree, though, that the word kind of turns me off.
I thought I had read most of McKinley, but I missed Deerskin. (I was in middle school when BEAUTY came out and loved it.)
ReplyDeleteI think you're right about a new marketing strategy for book clubs. In a similar vein:
http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/time-to-reboot-the-universal-symbol-for-library/
I agree your comment about people's preconceived notions about book clubs in general informing their willingness to participate in particular reading societies. I love the idea of college "ex pats" getting together and reliving one of their favorite aspects of college. I wonder how libraries can tap into that desire, and reach out to the 20s/30s set with that idea. What could they call them to "rebrand" these clubs?
ReplyDelete"Rebranding" is a really great way to frame what needs to be done to make book clubs more successful, I think. Discussing books (or articles, or movies, or even music sometimes) with people in an intellectual way is something I too miss from undergrad. There are obviously lots of people like this with lots of different perspectives, who aren't attracted to the traditional book club model. Surely there's a way for libraries to draw them in.
ReplyDelete