I think my first Book Group was in Stamford, which is taking us back to circa 1996, when I was a member of 2 book groups, and eventually I dropped the one I found most peculiar. It was held in the houses of the members in turn and it was OK if your house was a large one - plenty of space to sit, etc, but difficult (and possibly embarrassing) if your house was small. After discussing the book - and possibly before discussing the book - we talked about the children, moving house, career moves (the menfolk were involved in education, medicine, dentistry etc. so there were regular moves) holidays and decorating - all those things. I could never understand who had chosen the book. There was something cloak and dagger about it. Eventually I found a book group where the discussion was mainly about books and we all got on well. Everything was open and easy. We could agree to disagree too. There were 5-8 of us, which is enough to be a group and be fairly friendly with everyone. We even went on a book group jolly - to Howarth.
But we moved up North and I missed the book group and I did feel very lucky when we moved again, to London, because the librarian at my husband's (posh) school formed a book group for the staff and I was allowed to join! Basically, the librarian ran it and I think she decided on the books and the guests. We had Dylan Thomas's daughter at one of the meetings, a Foreign Correspondent at another, when we discussed "Scoop" by Evelyn Waugh, and Sophie Kinsella (author) came along to another. We also had the publisher of the Harry Potter series. Yes, we really had some interesting meetings and discussions, because many of the staff were very well-up in the arts, and the wonderful thing was how we rarely went completely off the topic. The staff there were an impressive bunch.
In Weybridge I was invited to join a book group fairly early on, and I left deliberately, when I started to work on my Open University course, saying I didn't have time to read off the course. It was because there was so much boring talk about things like neighbourhood crime and tax law (we had a tax accountant amongst our members). I also didn't like the sort of books we read - I often felt like saying - this is the sort of nonsense my daughter reads. It was quite a friendly book group but when my children stopped going to private schools I really felt I didn't belong.
One of my neighbours wanted to start a book group and my neighbour Amanda got me involved. This was such a good idea, apart from they would only meet on Sunday at 4 p.m. (what a weird time to do anything!!) and the neighbour whose idea it was is a complete loony. All she wants to do is talk about herself. She seems like someone with PTSD. And indeed, she had had a horrible shock. She and her husband used to be extremely rich and live in Mayfair, but somehow they lost all their money. So she talks about the old days all the time and hardly draws breath for anyone else to get a word in. Also, Amanda, who is a friend, never joined! She just got me to join! Anyway, the book group in our close fizzled out in a few months.
So after a long time of looking I went to the one at the Riverside Barn because it seemed to be for anyone who wanted to go, and there would not be the usual difficulty about not being from the right social/economic stratum, and in a way it's the right kind of book group - picks a range of the right kind of books - but the problem is that the membership is so OLD and the level of discussion can be really SAD. when I am old, will I have such a closed mind? I can't believe that, out of ten, "How to be Both " got 3. I gave it eight - some people gave it one, and our leader gave it zero.
Our next book is a Kate Atkinson which I am sure to enjoy.
Today I took my mother out. She has Alzheimer's. She has been in a lot of pain with her back, and she has been eating almost nothing, sitting in a chair doing nothing for about three weeks, so her muscles have shrunk. I have been feeding her soup and making her take her pills. She is a tiny old lady in enormous clothes. Anyway, I decided what she should wear, got her up and into the car, took her to an old favourite riverside pub and she ate a decent lunch. Also took her to a little supermarket where she wandered dottily about only wanting to buy cakes and milk. She asked a tall young man how tall he was, and he said he didn't know.
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