Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The Gift of Books and Friendship

Over 10 years ago my friends and I went out one night and as we were talking, we decided to start a book club.  At that time we decided on six members, myself, my friends and their mothers, and a former coworker of one of my friends.  We decided to meet on the first Wednesday of every month.  From the original six, five of us still remain.  We have had some friends come and go, some come and stay, and one go and come back.

We all love our book club for different reasons.  Although I don't always read the book, I always try to go to book club.  This is the one thing that I have kept consistent and fought for the most over the last 10 years.  It is my time to explore my interest in books and to read a few that I may not have read otherwise.  It is also a time to get together with friends and learn from their lives and share mine with them as our book club ranges in age from close to 70 to myself, the youngest at 37.

The one thing that we have done over the years is discuss the book.  There may be side conversations or other dinner time conversation, but, at some point, the discussion questions come out and we actually talk about the book.  We still rotate houses and everyone hosts once a year.  We use to meet year round and gave that up a few years back as it got harder and harder to schedule around vacations.  We were up to 10 members at one point, and right now, the nine that we have seems just right.  We don't meet in July and August, go out to eat in December and have a potluck in June.

We have changed the way that we pick books.  When we started, we chose books month to month, then quarterly.  Presently, the host for this month picks the book for the next month.  The new system seems to be working out and is fun!

We don't know the big secret as to why we have remained a book club for so long.   But, we do know that we hope to continue meeting long into the future!

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