Buckle up it's book club

Travel Editor Meggie Williams covers the resurgence of reading groups

Meggie Williams
18th November 2019
Image: Flickr

A new clubbing revolution is taking off with the Y Generation and rather unusually; it doesn’t leave you with copious amounts of beer fear the morning after and may just make your parents proud. Of course I’m taking about a wholesome book club! No longer seen as a past time for the retired in chilly village halls, book club has had a revamp in the eyes of the youth and there is a reason more and more of you are jumping onboard the book club bandwagon. Last year I joined an informal book club set up by a friend at Uni and here is what I discovered:

It broadened what I read

Before book club, I was guilty of reading similar types of books from the same genre over and over again. I knew what I liked and I stuck with it, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it means you can exclude so many amazing books without realising. I loved, liked and hated some of the books we read but it felt wonderfully refreshing to be pushed out of my reading comfort zone and has definitely made me more open to different types of books.

It enabled important conversations

Talking about books is a really easy and natural way to enable conversations about important topics that otherwise may be harder to bring up. Throughout our evenings in book club, conversations ranged from politics to mental heath, identity, relationships, sex, feminism and everything in between. No topic was too taboo and everyone’s opinions were respected. It made me realise how important it is to be able to debate and discuss topics like these in an open, friendly environment, allowing your opinions to challenged and swayed.

It’s different and fun

As simple as it sounds, book club is fun, very fun in fact. The avid readers among us will know the feeling you get when you are reading a book and really want to talk someone’s ear off about it but the chances are you can’t find anyone who really wants to listen? Well book clubs link you up to other like-minded souls who are also bursting full of things they want to discuss when the meeting comes around. I found book club a vibrant, open and creative environment where a mix of people came together and brightened up a rather mundane Monday. Book club gave us the chance to get to know one and other in a relaxed setting, engage in thought provoking conversations and enjoy a glass of wine or two. It was an evening I would always look forward to.  It’s also low key, cheap and a refreshingly different way to spend an evening: all round perfect for the student.

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