Community Book Club Events this Season
Book Club Events in February and March 2015
Participating in a book club can be a rewarding experience that adds a rich, social dimension to an encounter with literature. It's a great opportunity to meet other book lovers, discuss fascinating topics, expand one's library and reflect more broadly about the human condition.
Wordfest looks forward to partnering on a couple events this season that take cues from the book club format.
- The Writer’s Guild of Alberta & Wordfest Present: Book Club Discussion in acknowledgement of Freedom to Read Week. The event features a book club discussion of What I Meant to Say, the Private Lives of Men, edited by Ian Brown. Free admission. Monday, February 23, 7-9:30, at Barley Mill Pub & Restaurant.
- Wordfest Oh, Canada Book Club with Lorna Crozier: The event features a discussion of Crozier’s book The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things. Thursday, March 19, 7pm, at the Glenbow.
What distinguishes these events from others is the level of active audience participation. Those attending are encouraged to read the featured book or a selection from the book in advance of the event, and to read it reflectively with the goal of raising questions about the ideas in a work.
Preparing for a book club discussion may seem overwhelming and a bit intimidating for some, but it need not be the case. Below are some basic tips worth considering:
Preparing for a Book Club: Three Basic Tips
1. Read the book or book section. Then read it again. Read the book, or a chosen portion of the work, more than once if you can—taking notes and forming your own questions along the way. Start by reading the work in its entirety for a general idea of its scope and the full storyline. Then return to specific portions that intrigued or puzzled you most, and relate what is happening to your understanding of the story as a whole.
2. Practice Active Reading. It helps to have a pencil always in hand when reading actively. Don't be shy about marking interesting passages, underlying new or unique terms, writing observations in the margins and flagging important milestones in the text, for future reference. Some readers may even doodle or draw rough diagrams to help work through a complicated plot, storyline or trajectory of a character's development.
3. Stay Curious. Preparing for a book club discussion is about asking great questions along the way. Some questions will occur to you spontaneously as you read the text and these can be written out in full, while others may start out only as a question mark scribbled in the margin. Then, trusting your intuition, try to formulate tentative answer to as many of the questions you've raised.
*For more advice and direction on active reading and tips on preparing for a stimulating book club discussion, see the Handbook for Discussion Leaders & Participants prepared by The Great Books Foundation.
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