I’ve been thinking about setting up a Book Club here for a while, but all the talk of finding niches at Cybermummy has made me feel I should stop shilly-shallying and just get on with it!
You may have noticed that I have a little box on the right-hand side listing a book I’m reading with my real-life book club, and sometimes, if I’m feeling moved, I’ll make a little comment about how I’m getting on with it. Well, the idea now would be to expand that and make it an online club. I will give the title of a book, talk a bit about the author and other books I may have read on the same lines, then let everyone have a month to read the book. Then I’ll invite you all over for a virtual glass of wine, a delicious virtual dinner (I’m very good at virtual cooking – not so great in real life) and a discussion of the book. We could do this as guest posts at some stage but I’m thinking for the moment it would be a review or series of reviews by anyone who’s moved to send me one.
I’ve always thought that the joy of book clubs is that they make you read things just a little outside your comfort zone. My natural tendency is to pick up a whodunnit – I absolutely love the one I’m reading at the moment, Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman – but it’s lovely to read something a bit more literary (and less blood-splattered) every now and then. I also tend to gravitate towards women authors, so it’sgreat to be made to explore some really good male authors.
How does that sound? Interested? Got an idea for the first book? I’m thinking we should go with A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre unless someone has a great suggestion for us. I was very reluctant to pick this up initially as I am not keen on that whole cold war/spying thing, but I have been completely won over and I’d love to discuss the book, it has some really interesting themes.
You can buy it new from Amazon here from a fiver, or second hand from 1p (though I don’t suppose for a minute that the price includes postage).
Otherwise, I’d love to read the new Kate Atkinson, called Started Early, Took My Dog. But ooops, it’s a whodunnit by a woman. Come on, save me from myself and come up with a few other titles to try ….
Let me know what you think!
