General Book Club Questions Novels & Stories

"Book club." "Where?" "The community center on Maple Street." I groaned. "You've got to be kidding me." "I'm not." "Dean, I'm not interested in sitting around with a bunch of strangers talking about books I haven't read." "Then maybe you should have read them," he countered, still not looking at me. I wanted to reach forward and smack the phone out of his hand. Instead, I just sank lower in my seat and glared at the back of his head.

The invitation arrives via email. It's from Lisette. The subject line says: "Book Club - You Should Come." And the message is typical Lisette. Direct. No preamble. Just: "I started a book club. First month we're reading your book. You should come read to us." I call her immediately. "You started a book club and didn't tell me?" I ask. "I'm telling you now. It's six women. We meet once a month. This month we're reading your book because it's important and it's brilliant and I want to talk about it with people who will actually understand why it matters."

The book club ladies were in fine form this afternoon. Margaret Thompson sat primly on the floral couch in a rented out space close to the library, a half-empty teacup balanced on her knee, her Bible study notes open on the coffee table. The conversation had started with the latest Christian fiction novel — something about redemption and resisting temptation — but it had drifted, as it always did, into more personal territory. Gossip dressed up as prayer requests. “Speaking of temptation,” one of the women said, lowering her voice with dramatic concern, “have you heard what’s going around about that poor Thompson boy?”

“Let’s get something else for you. What else do you like? Any other sport? Hobbies?” I took a quick trip down memory lane, trying to figure out something, anything, i particularly enjoyed and all I could think about was an old hobby stemming from days of being left all alone in the house while my mum roamed about the country. “Is there a book club or something?” “A book club?” He raised his brows. “You want to join a book club?” “I promise I’m not a nerd.”

No need to look for another lie. "A women's book club, that's what I'm going for," I said, hoping he would believe my outlandish lie. "So let me get this straight." He sat up on his chair. "A bunch of ladies leave their homes with paperback novels, then find a fancy cafe and sit around in a circle talking about fictional characters they're in love with?" he asked, and I nodded at him, thinking this was the best approach. "Pretty much, yeah. It gets worse, but you're not supposed to know about that."

It's been a week since everything has been normal for a while. After I stopped reading those novels I got bored, my reading addiction got the best of me and here I am at the Coven Book Club. Yeah, habit. I was very very antisocial so I didn't know most of the girls here and they all attended my school for the past three years. Yep, I know, they can be a bit weird if we weren't discussing the novel we read that week. They would talk about magic, zodiacs and other stuff.

“You know, we could have some kind of reading list.” “Reading list?” I asked. “I’ve always envied reading clubs who had books to take down. Since you like reading, that wouldn't actually be inconvenient, will it?” I shook my head, “No.” “So, we decide a time to meet, and then we have a reading list. Maybe we both must finish eight books in two weeks. It could be at the library or right here. We don't have to read the same book. Just have different books, and delve into different worlds on the spot. Doesn't that sound fascinating?” She asked, with a bright smile. Hazel kept talking about the reading list in excitement, and I watched her in wonder.

So time went by, until one day I went to a meeting of friends, we all got together to go to a literature expo, this was very special, because we had a book club, in which we met every week to read a book, depending on the theme we were touching. So we were very interested in this expo, it was going to last three days and it was from eight in the morning to two in the afternoon, so we had breakfast and lunch, after lunch we went out and the last day started at twelve o'clock, we had lunch and dinner. To be continued.

Xavier might have been skeptical before, but let’s see how he plans to wriggle out of this one. "Yes, Xavier, doesn’t that sound delightful?" I flash him a grin, leaning back just enough to look completely at ease. "Why don’t you pick our first book? Something we can all study over the next few weeks." His face twists in barely concealed irritation. He grumbles something under his breath. I raise a brow. "What was that, Brother?" He exhales sharply. "I said it sounds like torture." He shakes his head. "You three enjoy yourselves." "You can’t have a book club with just three people," I argue, though I have no idea if that’s actually true. "You need at least four to make it… interesting. Other

Her blond hair curls about her round cheeks, her bright blue eyes gleaming. Maryanne clenches her teeth and holds herself back from rolling her eyes. "Shelley, don't ask such private questions," Jessica commands, a frown crumpling her brow. She pushes up her glasses as they begin to slide down the bridge of her nose. Shelley's eyes widen and she shrugs, a mask of innocence covering her face. "It was just a question. I am sorry if it was insensitive of me." "Maryanne, since you're back," Veronica begins, "Are we going to set up another book club meeting at your house?"