To not want to read pretentious books in book club

[bookswinebookswine]

I have joined many book clubs over the years and each time we read something super pretentious that I would never choose to read but want to be in a book club so go with it. I'm moving to Bristol and want to find/create a book club that reads GOOD books! I want the read the latest crime thriller/Sophie kinsella/ who dun it book and talk over wine! I adore books but I cannot join another book club that reads a super old "classic"! join my book club and talk about good current books! Or tell me about yours and I'll join!

@KeepServingTheDrinks
Because throwing it out of a train window was hugely satisfying, Aridane

I like the cut of your jib, @KeepServingTheDrinks !

You’re missing the point of a book club OP. They’re meant to be pretentious! They’re for people who like to think they’re intellectually superior to others!

"Because throwing it out of a train window was hugely satisfying, Aridane"

Also illegal and irresponsible. I really hope you're joking.

"You’re missing the point of a book club OP. They’re meant to be pretentious! They’re for people who like to think they’re intellectually superior to others!"

Not where I live. They're for gossiping and drinking. I used to go to one where the book was hardly even discussed!

But it’s absolutely nonensial to suggest that they’re capable of generating a proper discussion

bollocks. and I say that as a literary academic.

Watching with interest as I would like to join a book club or even set one up myself

@keepservingthedrinks. If you had posted on here about throwing anything else on the floor you would have had your arse handed to you on a plate. Littering is not cool or funny. Also maintenance staff work on train tracks so I am sure they would not have found it satisfying to be hit in the face by your Wilbur Smith travelling at 50 plus miles per hour. Just donate to a charity shop because someone else will like it

The awful thing is, I'm in a book club, and all that's ever proposed is indeed a Sophie Kinsella/Jenny Colgan type book and I long for something more 'pretentious'!!

Leaving books on trains with a note scrawled inside the front cover to the next reader should be an everyday form of recycling. I suppose on short hop trains a lot might be thrown away by the cleaners but on long distance trains it should be encouraged, in fact there should be a swap rack in every carriage, where you sometimes find leaflets

I left and found a few books on long distance trains in Asia, it should be more common everywhere. Sort of an anonymous book club almost.

@blueskiesandforests I think that is a wonderful idea. I have a friendly Greek guy on my regular train who noticed I love to read and saves me books he thinks I might like. More people should do this

In my book club we read a complete mixture ranging from classics (we read a ‘Treasure Island’ and ‘The Assassination Club’ as choices last year) to crime (‘The Bone Field’ and ‘The Corset’ recently). We try to mix in books that take us out of our comfort zone, so we have also read ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ and ‘Heartburn’ in the last couple of months. This month we are reading Tom Hanks ‘Uncommon Type’; ‘My Husband’s Lies’ by Caroline England and ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ by Heather Morris.

Salman Rushdie is why I left! maybe pretentious was the wrong word but I felt like they were all reading what they thought should be read in book club where yes I want to read lighter books.

So called 'lighter books' and genre fiction don't really lend themselves to analysis, as often they are written to a formula or the characters are rather 2 dimensional and the plot takes priority over the prose or character development. The well known ones are often part of a series of books, which means they sometimes don't work as standalone novels.

There's nothing wrong with these types of books, but they're probably best read alone.

Laliella
They’re for people who like to think they’re intellectually superior to others!

Having trouble brushing that chip off your shoulder? My book club has (lovely) normal people, certainly don’t think we’re superior to others, we just like reading, talking and eating (not necessarily in that order).
The only issue I have is with people who make sweeping statements for effect about other people who are going quietly about their business, bothering nobody.

I have been invited to join a couple of book clubs. As far as I’m aware there is quite a bit of wine and a lot of chat is not about books.

I get the feeling book clubs are often more to do with company and meeting potential friends than literary discussion. I don’t see any book as being pretentious. Did you try Salman Rushdie at all?

Blueskies there's a website called BookCrossing where you can give your books a barcode, record where you can leave them and then follow them on their journey.

they are written to a formula or the characters are rather 2 dimensional and the plot takes priority over the prose or character development

Much the same as classics like Dickens and Dumas then

Oh that's interesting LaDaronne - will have a look!

What do you manage to discuss about a Sophie Kinsella book?

Book clubs are about discussion aren't they?

Read what you like, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. But honestly, there are books you might enjoy that are not literary fiction but are a little more meaty.

Kate Atkinson. Pat Barker. Just for starters,

Much the same as classics like Dickens and Dumas then

Neither of whom i rate.

Or would thinkvwould work well in a book club setting, unlessib the case of Dickens you discuss the historical context in which they were written, even then you may as well just talk about social and poltical conditions in mid victorian Britain.

Sorry I think yabu saying you love books you love popular fiction which is not particularly the same thing.

As per pp for book clubs to work they need to have something that will feed discussion and the kind of books you like while enjoyable aren't suited to this task.

Book clubs are also generally intended to motivate people to read books they would otherwise not consider and thus end up finding genres or authors they like that they otherwise would have missed out on.

As for "pretentious" which ones do you put in this category? Have you actually tried reading them without being set against them before you do? Open your mind?

You could try setting up a crime fiction book club but I'd recommend not always choosing lighter tomes and at least occasionally try "classic" crime fiction like Sherlock Holmes, Wilkie Collins, Dorothy l Sayers, Agatha Christie, Edgar Allen Poe?

I like crime fiction and was so sad when Sue grafton passed, I also love Marian Keyes, Cecilia ahern and Freya north. But I also love Dickens, Jane Austen, bronte sisters, George Orwell, John Steinbeck.

I can just about manage SOME James Joyce though finnegans wake is beyond me!

Amitrightorameringue - because while the book is the same the readers aren't. We all being our own experiences, ideas and opinions to a reading of a text. It affects the characters we like, what we think of their actions etc - you might be interested to read up on "reader response theory" it's why there's no wrong answer in lit exams PROVIDING you give evidence for your reading of the text, your interpretation. In book clubs you get to hear other people's interpretations and even question and debate them.

"i just think they meant what they wrote" Joyce loved challenging this idea. Deliberately misleading readers especially theorists. But he wasn't the only one.

But then I'm a lit & ling grad so I basically did 3 years of book club - sadly minus wine 😂😂 might be a good suggestion to loosen students up especially in first year when the younger ones can be scared to say the wrong thing!

"Oh 'chicklit is rubbish' ie books that are written by women are trivial, almost-identical books with a man's name on the cover become 'sensitive analyses of the human condition'..." Haha - that basically reminds me of my first seminar! The lecturer (male) said pretty much that. But we quickly learned he was being deliberately provocative and as we came to know him, he liked getting a rise out of 1st years (bit of an ice breaker too) and was actually a great champion of women writers.

I don’t think we’ve ever actually discussed a book for more than about 5 minutes in our book club. We’re doing pretty well if over half the club have even read the book in the first place.

Much the same as classics like Dickens and Dumas

Disingenuous post of the day.

Why? Dickens and Dumas wrote for pretty much the same readership as Sophie Kinsella et al do today. They published in the popular press and wrote deliberately page-turning books that made no claim to literary pretension. I think the parallels are pretty clear.

If you want to read entertaining easy reads by authors you know, then just do that.

Book clubs are usually about reading things you wouldn't otherwise, and expanding the range of things you like, and sometimes hating the other person's choices, as well as the social side.

You could just set up a new group where you only read Sophie Kinsella etc. Or rely on online recommendations based on things you already like for your reading, and just meet up with your friends for drinks instead.

It's a shame when people don't want to expand their brain and carry on learning all their lives though. You don't have to enjoy or like everything, but calling Salman Rushdie a "pretentious" choice speaks volumes (pardon the pun).

bollocks. and I say that as a literary academic.

Being a literary academic doesn’t mean your word is law. I’m educated in english lit to masters level, but that doesn’t mean I think what I say on the subject is automatically more valid than somebody who isn’t. Let’s have some justification!

There is nothing wrong with a Sophie Kinsella. Her books are engaging and cleverly plotted and enjoyable. But her characters are one-dimensional (I defy you to try and point out any true differences between the heroines of different books) and stereotypical (sassy but adorably clumsy women whose main strengths are emotional intelligence and intuition). Her plots are mirrors of what’s happening in the world rather than new insights into it. She isn’t revealing anything new, she’s just reflecting back what is already apparent. It’s that familiarity that makes the books enjoyable but unchallenging reads.

There’s nothing wrong with this. Like I said, I enjoy them. And if all you want from a book club is to be encouraged to read a book every month, then fine. But if you actually want a proper, literary discussion then you aren’t going to find fertile ground in Sophie Kinsella.