I’ve accepted Joma’s suggestion and here you are! This is what I’d written.
Two years ago I got involved in a reading club. An old friend invited me to join a small ‘reading club’ that had been created recently. It was a really new and good experience for me from the very beginning; this is the reason I’m going to talk about this and I’m going to do it from my personal experience.
If you search the internet for ‘reading club’, in English better known as a ‘book group’, you will find that’s a group of people who meet to discuss a book that they have read and express their opinions, likes, dislikes, reflections and so on.
For me it’s more than this. It’s an appointment that every month (more or less) I look forward to, to talk not only about the book we have read, but also to spend a nice time chatting about books, culture, music and life around us, in a comfortable atmosphere, holding a book in our hands, having a snack, a drink in front of a lighted fireplace in winter and sometimes when nights are warmer under the summer skies.
What do I think people can gain being a member of a book group?
From my personal experience I believe there are lots of positives aspects:
- First of all, you’re probably going to read more (this is what has happened to me). You’ll try to find time to read because you want to go to the club with the ‘homework’ done, so you can share your points of view.
- Probably you’re going to read some books that on your own, maybe you wouldn’t have chosen, so in the same way you’ve got the chance to expand your literary tastes.
- You can enjoy more the readings, because if you like the book, talking about it is a way of going back on its pages, reread and relish the book.
- You’ll go deeper in the book, story, characters, the way how the story is composed, its language… listening and sharing the other people’s opinions. At the same time you can clarify, with the help of people’s ideas, some parts of the book not very clear for you.
- Probably you’ll discover and know more about other books and authors that arise in the conversations between the people in the group.
- The stories, characters, backgrounds… in the books are an opened window to different people’s realities, ideas, thoughts. Talking about that, you can get to know different ways of understanding life and at the same time you are more aware of your own ideas in contrast.
A part from these benefits as readers that share a book, there are others as a member of a club. To be part of a group means to meet different people, to get involved in a specific dynamic and even to plan and carry out activities to enjoy. And the most important thing, it gives the chance to share part of our lives.
Thanks to M. Àngels, Joma, Neus, and Montse to make possible this experience.
Josefina
