Wednesday, November 7, 2007

The Do's and Dont's of (Book) Clubbing

Just in case you can never satisfy your Josh-mania, head on over to the "Books & Booze" website to get my take on the "Do's and Don'ts of a successful book club." Most of my advice comes from my experience in the C.R.A.F.T. club in college, a successful book club that crashed and burned on the shores of a multi-week attempt to get through James Joyce's Ulysses.



Still, book clubs, when done correctly, are great fun. I might, however, suggest you stay away from 900 page modernist novels!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"[S]tay away from 900 page modernist novels" - now you tell me!! I just joined a book club that I found on craigslist that was reading Infinite Jest (I know you loved that book, so I took the plunge). Only two other people showed up. One guy, much like myself, moved to the city this summer for his wife and is working from home. Seemed normal enough. The other guy was, well, schizophrenic. No joke. This is going to be a long book.

All I want is a group of young, bright, enthusiastic readers to share the new Michael Chabon novel with - is that too much to ask?

Josh said...

Yeah, that's too bad. You should stick it out with Infinite Jest, though-it's definitely worth the effort. I read that at the same time as Tim McCarty in college, so I had a book club of sorts when I read it, too, and it probably helped me to understand it better.