Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Book Club Gone Rogue

I belong to a somewhat unconventional book club--we'd like to think of ourselves as a rogue group, but since we're all teachers, women, and somewhat nice people who meet in a coffee shop, it's difficult to get people to buy that. Maybe if we started meeting in a motorcycle bar. Or in an abandoned factory down by the tracks.

Only those places don't have coffee and yummy pastries and comfy chairs gathered around a coffee table. The other problem is that other than coloring outside the lines when establishing the rules for our club, the most dangerous thing we do is refuse to wear socks in all but the coldest weather and willingly spend all day with middle schoolers and first graders.

The group is small--just the 4 of us. A. and I started meeting just because we've been friends since her son was in my class and she was a parent helper. We missed the days of chatting over coffee in my classroom and had started recommending book titles to each other. One day we met at the coffee shop to exchange stacks of books and the nontraditional book club was formed.

For a long time it was just the two of us. That was the first slightly out of the ordinary thing about our club--most people don't consider 2 people enough for a real club. However, we like to think that our personalities are big enough to pull it off.

The second unconventional thing we did is refuse to read the same book at the same time and then discuss it. Instead, our meetings are part book talk about books we want each other to read and part spilling our guts about what we'd thought about the books we'd urged upon each other at the last meeting.

Oh, and meetings. They are somewhat less than regular. We meet when we need something to read, want to push books on each other, or when we want a reason to spend time in the coffee shop with other girls.

After a while, A. and I thought that maybe we should expand our club. A. invited her teacher-daughter and I invited a young teacher-friend. B. and L. are great additions to the group, and they like our rules. A. and I sometimes wonder if we are corrupting the young.

Our newest adventure is blogging. I started a while back, and decided it was time to corrupt expand the horizons of the rest of the group. I thought that if I enjoyed it and it was good for me as a writer, it must be good for others, right?

We met recently, but with no books or book talk (see? rogue!). We made sure that everyone had a blog set up, spent a very long time playing with the backgrounds (we like to look good), and made sure each person posted. Tonight, I sent a nagging reminder to the others and the text messages started flying. Imagine my chagrin when L. and A. both had ideas and I had nothing! Then they both posted before me. I toyed with the idea of just typing out the text messages, as we like to think that we are rather clever; however, that involved some risk (what if we find out we're not clever? or funny?).

So instead you get the slightly skewed history of our following-our-own-rules book club. Happy reading girls!

12 comments:

  1. I am laughing out loud and so proud to finally be ROGUE!!!

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  2. i also had NO idea what to write about today. in fact that is what my whole post is about. must just be the day for us. what an excellent description of our mismashed really non conventional grouping.

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  3. Sounds like an ideal book club. No pressure to be at a certain place in the book...but you also get to read and recommend great books. I'm jealous! Can I go rogue? Happy reading and coffee drinking!

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  4. Sounds like a group I'd like to meet too. It's great that you expanded to help the younger set (or corrupt as you might have said). Your humorous style is so fun to read! And, I wish that sometime you'd share the books you're pushing. I'd love to hear about them.

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  5. Love your title! The part about how your buddies had ideas before you made me laugh. :)

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  6. That's the kind of book club I want to belong to. I haven't been able to crash into any around me - so maybe I should go rogue like you.

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  7. Isn't it fun to be able to set up your own group with your own rules or should I say non-rules. Keep on doing what makes it work for you!

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  8. I love your book club. Sometimes the keeping up with the reading gets to be a little much--especially if you are all teachers. My book club is more about the socializing than the books most of the time. Even if someone hasn't read the book, it is expected they show up for the rest of the conversation! Enjoy your time together--and keep going rogue

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  9. You crack me up! I am guessing you are a riot to work with. This reminded me of an earlier slice of yours- the one about all the secretly criminal things you do that will prevent you from going into the FBI/CIA one day (like squeezing the toothpaste from the middle just once before moving to the bottom on the next squeeze). I especially love that you can manipulate your quirks to suit a humorous exaggeration in either direction.

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  10. A rogue book club! It sounds like so much fun. You made me laugh!

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  11. I am glad you wrote about the history of your book club. You obviously have fun getting together. Your attitude toward the club and humorous style of writing make your circle so inviting. I hope to hear more about the meetings and books.
    Terje

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