A Little Light Book Chat

I won't post about my most reason book club selection unit after our discussion tonight, but I found myself at the point again, trying to decide what to start next.  In the meantime, I picked up One for the Books by Joe Queenan.  I had made it through the first couple of chapters but stopped for another book I was working on; this afternoon, I picked up at the next chapter, in which he discusses his own peculiar habit of reading not just one or two books at a time but thirty-something.  I was more pleased and relieved that ever that his was the very book I had laid aside for a brief respite. Now if it takes me years to finish, I won't have to wrestle with guilt.

I do want to suggest his book, however, to other book lovers, rabid, voracious readers.  He confirms what I've suspected all along: there is more than one way to enjoy reading.  His way doesn't have to match my way.  (It doesn't.)  I don't have to grow defensive with others who find eReaders somehow a distant second to "real books."  These discussions always have me imagining manuscript snobs thumbing their noses at William Caxton back in the English Medieval Period.  I proudly confess that I take my literature anyway I can get it.  I generally have at least one "real book" going, another on my iPad, and one in the car CD player. If someone agreed to sit at my side and read aloud, that would be fine too.

One more note I have to add on the off chance that the person to remain nameless here might some day venture here to my blog.  I struck up a conversation with a woman taking an art class with me.  The two of us showed up to work on our projects while we had some free time to use the press.  I made reference to my book club, and the woman, fairly new to the area, asked me to what club I belonged. When I explained it was one I had helped begin more than ten years ago, she said, "I started going to a book club as  [place to remain nameless to protect whomever], but they read A BOOK EVERY MONTH! I just don't have that kind of time."

"Mmmm.  Really?" I was, for once, speechless.

A Little Light Book Chat