What's your book club reading?

Four years ago, the New York Times carried a feature article entitled, "Really?  You're Not in a Book Club?"

Book clubs are everywhere.  As the writer, James Atlas, pointed out, you can ask an acquaintance, "What book is your book club reading?" with a fair assurance that he or she actually is reading a book with a book club.  Book clubs even work their way into the comics: the current story line in "Crankshaft" is the disconcerting effect on a rather casual book club, composed of middle-aged or older women, when joined by two eager young high school students.

Most book clubs involve neighbors sitting around a living room, talking about books and looking forward to the refreshments.  Women seem more enthralled by the idea than men, often because of the social aspect, but that varies from place to place. 

Atlas points out the attraction of book clubs, aside from desserts and coffee:

Reading is a solitary act, an experience of interiority. To read a book is to burst the confines of one’s consciousness and enter another world. What happens when you read a book in the company of others? You enter its world together but see it in your own way; and it’s through sharing those differences of perception that the book group acquires its emotional power.

The benefits of book clubs -- but not the desserts -- are increasingly enjoyed on-line.  In fact -- and this is the point of my little blurb -- my college alumni association has been sponsoring an on-line book club for many years.

The selection for the spring academic quarter is The Grapes of Wrath.  Steinbeck's novel  is one of the classics of American literature.  It would be a shame for any reasonably literate person to go through life having never read it, but I've been on that path for far too long! 

But the alumni notice has impelled me to action.  I've signed up for enrollment and for receipt of further information.  And -- rather than wait until the last minute like the college student I once was -- I've already downloaded a copy of the book from Amazon for $6.99.

Obviously, with a large number of readers on-line, the conversational intimacy of Sally Jones's living room will be somehow lost.  But the discussion groups are interactive.  One can contribute to the conversation either on-line or by email.  And, of course, one can simply read the book, and let himself be educated by the brilliant critique and literary observations of his supposed intellectual superiors. 

(Dude, you all went to college together!)

Either way, I expect to understand and appreciate The Grapes of Wrath far more deeply as a result of the book club experience than I would if I had simply read it on my own for entertainment.  Or maybe I won't, but I will have at least given it a whirl.  Bring it on!