Why joining a book club made me a better reader

Unlike other in person social clubs for artists, athletes or hobbyists, book clubs are notoriously hard to find, and harder to join.

Unlike other in person social clubs for artists, athletes or hobbyists, book clubs are notoriously hard to find, and harder to join.

Recently, I envisioned a moment in my future, where I’d fill the shelves of a private library in my yet to be purchased home, with all the books I’ve ever loved. It would include everything from the books I’d bought for the cover to the ones that had profoundly changed my life, and I’d arrange them on my Ikea-neat shelves by slim, slow, fast and epic. I’d treat visitors to a tour as though navigating a bookshop and showcase the hidden nook by a wide window of greenery and the arm chair beside it worthy of blocking out a day with a prize-winning book for.

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I wasn’t always like this. Growing up I never had the patience for reading and often relied on friends and the internet for school-assigned books. But then the paranormal romance boom arrived and I rode that wave through my teenage years and have rarely strayed since. That is until about a year ago (or six books ago) when I was invited by a friend to join my very first book club.

I was relatively new to the city and on the lookout for friends and so the invitation felt like a sign I couldn’t ignore, and when making friends can start as simply as having one common interest, who wouldn’t want that to be books?

I arrived without doing any prep, having not read a book in over six months. As we began to cycle through stories, a lot of snacks, and a post-discussion craft, I learnt about the other members of the book club, with each choice a slow revealing of their interior worlds. The five other members turned out to all be expats, and I, it seemed, was the honorary local. A part of me wondered if I was intruding on this found community in their new home, one that they extended birthday and wedding invitations to. I felt guilty knowing the corners of my life were all a car trip away and I vowed to earn my place.

I quickly realised that reading the book was optional but felt committed to the cause, completing all six novels selected and successfully testing the waters of a few new genres. It turned out there was a world (or worlds) outside of Twilight mimicry. And yet, when it came time for me to choose the next book, I faltered. My eyes had been opened, but I still didn’t know what kind of reader I was yet.

I’d extended my education outside of the book club and become captivated by BookTok where I was surprised to find that book culture was booming. It seemed like every it-girl was being papped going around NYC with a literary masterpiece under their arm. Famously, after Kendall Jenner was spotted reading “Literally Show Me a Healthy Person” by Darcie Wilder poolside in Cannes, it sold out on Amazon. Wilder described the event as a ‘capitalistic boost’ that likely also benefitted Jenner culturally. Some celebrities have begun to leverage this cultural capital by starting their own online book clubs. Take Emma Robert’s Belletrist, Dua Lipa’s Service95 or Kaia Gerber’s Instagram live book club that she kicked off in lockdown with Sally Rooney’s Normal People and a guest appearance from actress Daisy Edgar-Jones.

The girls in my book club seemed mostly out of loop from this. When I’d asked some of them if they’d heard of Sally Rooney they’d drawn a blank. My next attempt, ‘How about Colleen Hoover?’ was met with shrugs. But since we didn’t have the same access that celebrity book clubs did to the author, it didn’t really matter if the book was going viral online or not, or if the author was or wasn’t available for an interview. 

In fact, it was this unknowing that leaned into the mythology of book clubs that I’d long associated them with. Unlike other in person social clubs for artists, athletes or hobbyists, book clubs are notoriously hard to find, and to join. Often discovered only through conversations and still only accessible by personal invitation. And when you do find them it’s more about personal taste than pop culture. Though there’s community to be found in online spaces and Instagram book clubs, especially for those living out of a city, the almost old-fashioned tradition of an in person meet-up guarantees you will uncover new people, strange books and quirky homes; a rare combination that will not be repeated twice, and is not recorded for later in-app viewing.   

Before leaving indefinitely for a job abroad, a friend of mine who’d I’d been giving the rundown on all my latest reads, proud to finally have a few to list off, said to me ‘I hope I can find my own book club when I’m over there.’

She was an avid reader and as teens we’d first bonded over a soppy romance book, one we looked back on in equal parts shame and affection. Over the years we’d shared our own recommendations to each other and it was a recent one of hers that I tentatively claimed as my book club pick.

I don’t know when it happened but books have now become my love language. I keep in touch with some of my closest friends and family members, divided by cities and countries, through book recommendations. Another friend and I have made it a tradition to exchange books for Christmas as we have the closest cross over in taste which makes for many long discussions and an upcoming live author panel we plan to attend together. Truthfully, I haven’t connected with every book and genre I’ve consumed this year, finding a good fit can be hard work, but sharing them all with someone—be that new friends or old—makes reading all the more satisfying.

Unsurprisingly, no one had heard of my book club pick, but by time we all meet to debrief, we find ourselves locked in a debate over plot points, the upcoming television adaption and whether the lead they’d cast was the right choice to play a Russian aristocrat. It wasn’t everyone’s favourite book but that wasn’t the point, book club had given me an incentive to read and a space to enjoy it, and, at the very least, a few more books for my imaginary library. 

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Originally published as Why joining a book club made me a better reader