Maybe fifteen years ago now, a good friend and I started a book club. I think the first book we read was The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. If you haven’t read it, then I’d recommend it, even though it starts horrifically, with the narrator being raped and murdered. The rest of the novel deals with how her family come to terms with her death while she watches from Heaven. It really is, despite the beginning, a lovely book.

From then we read a number of current novels until we found we just weren’t enjoying any of them, so we tried, each in turn, introducing a favourite book to the rest of the group. I remember that one of my choices was Watership Down. I said, “This is not a book about rabbits.” When we met up to discuss it, one of the members looked at me with some bewilderment, “But it absolutely is a book about rabbits,” she said.

We instigated a rule, that nobody had to read more than the first page if they absolutely hated it, and eventually, we found we were talking less and less about the book and more and more about our own lives. We instigated another rule, one that lead to a change in the name. We agreed we wouldn’t have a book each month, Instead, we would just meet up and talk.

In those fifteen years, members have come and gone. In that time, we have supported each other through the loss of parents, the sorrow of having a daughter move out to Australia, and divorce. The group was the first I turned to when the young man we had taken into our home and hearts turned out to be a paedophile and grooming my younger daughter.

Last night, we came full circle. We ended up talking about books. We recommended books to each other and discussed Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus – another lovely book, and one we had, by accident, all read.

I know I am fortunate in having such a supportive group of women who have become friends and, last night, I was looking round the group to see how we had all come together. We have grown organically. The other original member has moved away, but the friend she introduced is still with us. I introduced another two friends and they introduced more, and the friend of a friend introduced another two. One of my former clients had been saying how she wanted to join a book club and so she came along too – and has stayed despite the lack of books. 

I was thinking, last night, that just maybe, we’ve got to the stage where we could reinstate the books. This would enable us to invite other women into the group. After all, you can’t really have a book club without the books.

Are any of you a member of a book club? And, if so, how does it work for you?

Mary

A Moodscope member