I ♥ Book Club

My being ‘a reader’ isn’t unusual here on the blogs. Among those of us also writing it’s also a requirement, although I’ll bet, entirely a pleasure. When I meet people who don’t read (in the same compulsive way I do) they often remark on my ‘head in a book’ habit. It does define me.

I’ve always known what I wanted to read. I’ve no idea how early books came into my life (did my parents choose them?) My parents certainly never ‘managed’ my reading nor forbade anything. I was aware that my Mum disliked Enid Blyton, but both she and my Dad had a ‘any reading is good’ philosophy; they believed if you discovered a love of reading (anything) you’d always be a reader and your critical faculties would develop with maturity.

About four years ago I had a fiction reading crisis. It came upon me slowly, but I ceased to be satisfied by the type of books I was reading and then worse still, I stopped being able to choose books. It was so frustrating because I’d never been unable to select books. My lovely friend The High Priestess of Punk-chew-ation let me loose on her bookshelves. Among the ones I took and never read was Bel Canto by Anne Patchett.

Then I found out we were moving to Bangkok. There wasn’t room in my head to worry about what to read and so I just consumed ‘escapist’ novels because I needed more than ever in this time of upsidedownyness to read. This took the pressure off me and my panic and misery subsided a bit.

Then when I got to Thailand I joined a couple of book clubs. Once a month my reading was prescribed and I had agreed to read whatever it was that was nominated. (When I read in the blurb of Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami that there were ‘talking cats,’ I nearly expired on the spot. I didn’t do talking animals ... but I really enjoyed it.)

I don’t always like the book club choice but I always (barring life events) read it. Brilliant books I would NEVER have picked up with being made to, are: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.

This month’s book for Book Club… is Bel Canto by Anne Patchett which I’d already got.

And OMG: I’ve found the book I wish I’d written.

It’s my first 5/5 for Book Club.