Hello…ello…lo……..  Are book clubs like echo chambers—reading and talking about the same books?  Joshua Henkin (Matrimony) worries that we are: you know, books like Water for Elephants; Eat, Pray, Love; Kite Runner. We’re all reading them and reviewing the same ones.

Here’s how Henkin puts it:

There are a lot of great books out there that people don’t know about . . . . [At the same time] fewer books have more and more readers. . . .  For that reason, it has become harder for all but a handful of books to get the attention they deserve.   
                                        —Books on the Brain, 4/29/08 

Henkin makes a strong case. Pity new authors trying to get their books noticed. It’s got to be disheartening.

Nonetheless, there’s something delightful that so many of us are on the same page. The book club movement is like the city that promotes a single book for its residents to read. Meet someone at the water cooler, at the mall, on the bus…and a conversation gets started. “Hey, how do you like Eat, Pray, Love? Have you read such & such yet?” It’s suddenly easy to find commonality, even with total strangers.

And while Henkin is right—many more authors deserve our attention—perhaps book club lists have more variety than expected.

Take a look at the list below. It’s a sampling of titles that have cropped up recently on LitLovers website—some are mentioned by our featured book clubs, others come from people who email me to request a reader’s guide. It’s an interesting list.

Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie — Half of a Yellow Sun
Murray Bail — Eucalyptus
Lynne Cox — Grayson
Ivan Doig — Whistling Season; the McCaskill trilogy
Jennifer Cody Epstein — The Painter from Shanghai
Dorothea Benton Frank — Sullivan’s Island
Victor Fankl — Man’s Search for Meaning
Tana French — In the Woods
Beth Gutcheon — Good-bye and Amen; Leeway Cottage
Jim Harrison — Returning to Earth
Kent Haruf — Plainsong; Eventide   
Robert Hicks — Widow of the South
Paulette Jiles — Enemy Women
Lesley Kagen — Whistling in the Dark
Aryn Kyle — The God of Animals
Sinclair Lewis — Main Street
J. Nozipo Maraire – Zenzele: Letter for My Daughter
Roland Merullo — Breakfast with Buddha
David Mitchell — Ghostwritten
John O’Hara — Appointment in Samarra
Tom Perotta —  Little Children; The Abstinence Teacher
Nancy Pickard — The Virgin of Small Plains
Anthony Powell — Dance to the Music of Time
Richard Powers — The Echo Maker
Reynolds Price — Kate Vaiden
Tatiana de Rosnay — Sarah’s Key
Mary Doria Russell — The Sparrow
Helen Santmyer — And Ladies of the Club
Carol Shields — Stone Diaries; Unless
Ahdaf Soueif — The Map of Love
Nancy Turner — These Is My Words
Larry Watson — Sundown, Yellow Moon; Montana 1948 

See all posts on Joshua Henkin’s book club essay.

1. Book Clubs—smarter than book critics?
2. So … Where are all the guys?
3. I Laughed! I Cried! — how do we talk about books?
   
   

Let me tell you how easy it is to get over your attachment to books—the kind with paper pages?  Once you hold this gorgeous book-machine (yes, machine) in your hand, you won’t want to let go.  Ever.

It’s surprisingly easy on the eye—so you can read for hours, even even bump up the type size. It’s easy to flip from page to page and back again.  You can bookmark pages, highlight passages, even make notes!  You’re automatically connected to Amazon, so with a click of a button, you buy your books—and they’re downloaded within a minute.  Ooooooooh… I’m in love!

But dear librarians, here’s the question: what will you do? If our books become electronic, what’s the future for libraries? I know librarians all over the country are asking this very question—I read your blogs. (Wow, do you guys blog!) And what will become of bricks-and-mortar book stores? 

Oh, how did I get my Kindle?  After all, they’re not cheap.  Well, my dear friend Lynne presented it to me as a gift!  Give her a call.  Maybe she’ll take a liking to you and get you one, too.  Here’s her number: 202-555-1234.  Good luck.

Cheap shot, that title. I suspect there are a healthy number of men who do join book clubs — in fact I read about one just recently. 

The Second Monday Men’s Book Group in Melbourne, Florida, is featured in the Nov-Dec ’08 issue of Bookmarks magazine.  Funny story—before they formed their group, they thought they’d see if they could join one of their wives’ book clubs. Here’s what happened:

We brought it up.  They shot it down.  We’d change their dynamics by merely being present—and what would happen if we opened our mouths?

Which brings to mind the joke: If a man is alone in the forest and he speaks ... is he still wrong? Apparently so. Anyway, the guys decided to form their own club, now numbering around 7.

In an earlier post, I wondered what kind of books men read.  Well here’s how the Second Monday group weighs in:

Nonfiction

Tuxedo Park (radar)  |  Cadillac Desert (dam-building)  |  Soul of a New Machine (computers)  |  Jungle (meat packing)  |  Washington’s Crossing (history)  |  American Theocracy (politics)  |  Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman (physicist’s memoir)  |  Everglades, River of Grass (history)  |  West With the Night (female aviator’s memoir)  |  Why Americans Hate Politics (politics).  

Fiction

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan  |  Saturday by McEwan  |  Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brien  |  My Antonia by Willa Cather  |  Foundation by Isaac Asimov (sci-fi)  |  Maltese Falcom by Dashiell Hammett  |  Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler  |  Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon  |  Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky  |  The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

Observations? 

1. Heavy on non-fiction—50%. 
2. Preponderance of male writers—80%. 
3. Similar novel choices to female clubs—along with sci-fi (Asimov) and action-adventure /historical fiction (O'Brien).  

Question:  Is this a typical list for men’s book clubs—with 50% of the books nonfiction and 80% of the writers male?

Also, see So…Where Are the Guys? — an earlier post about men and book clubs.

Question:  Can you really say you’ve “read” a book when you’ve listened to it?   Does listenting count as “reading”—and does it work for a book club discussion?

Answer:  Well, at least we get through the book!  In a busy life, that counts for something.

On the other hand. . .we’re usually multi-tasking when listening, which means the book doesn’t have our full attention.  Second, we read at our own pace:  pause, ponder, re-read, or jot a note.  Hard to do with audio while driving.  Third, in a book discussion, it’s easy for everyone to turn to a particular passage on a particular page.  Not so easy with audio.

Two other considerations:  purists say a narrator’s voice can unfairly influence how we experience a work.  And finally, it turns out our memories work better when reading rather than listening.  That’s especially true for adults and older students (though the research isn’t definitive).

So not being a purist, my advice is to enjoy audio books whenever you feel like it—but read the printed version when it comes to your book club selection.  (See LitLovers Discussion Tips.)