The Glorification of Bookclubs

     You know those women, middle-aged, no problems, maybe two or three sons and a girl, that have a surprisingly strong commitment to bookclubs? I've always wondered how they seem to consume books like candy. Just one after another. I wonder if they even remember what they read and more importantly, what haven't they read. It seems like books are becoming similar to that of the fashion industry: Fast fashion. These run-of-the-mill novels of the same tropes with the same characters and the same writing style are saturating the publishing industry faster than ever. And it seems like a majority of bookclubs hyper fixate on those books that could be summarized in a total of two sentences.

    Notice how you are assuming right now that you think I'm referring to romance books? It's actually a lot of the books we expect to be different that disappoint us the most. All the modern poetry and philosophy books seem to just reiterate the same concepts that hold a mask of nuance. It seems hard to write a book that doesn't consider the tropes in the trending category. And, as much as I love to sit down and read those books and just enjoy, it makes it difficult to actually discuss that book in a bookclub. If I'm reading something that just doesn't seem all that nuanced or offer any new idea to the table, how can I expect to take anything from the book other than "it was good".

    Bookclubs are amazing at connecting a group of people together with the beautiful art of literature, but often times I feel that we forget that bookclubs have a purpose of finding new ideas. To have good conversation, we need good topics. If we essentially read the same book over and over, our discussions at our meetings will probably get exhausted with repetition. People often think that those who are in bookclubs don't really read but rather just like to talk and drink - going back to that stereotype again - which may have some truth to it, but that is only because the idea of being in a bookclub is so glorified. It is so deeply rooted in our human nature to compare ourselves to one another and intellectualism has well been the grounds of the battling of our egos for many years. It only makes sense that we say we are in a bookclub just to say that we "are in a bookclub", and to support our bubbled egos, we say the we read books like eating candy. It is the glorification - and literally just lying - that is killing the bookclubs. While it could be argued that the books itself are the ones that are hurting the groups, it's really just the type of books we choose to read in order to keep the bookclub going.