Book Club in a Box
Despite the number of books that now arrive here daily I do still spend some time wandering around the online bookshops for ideas and recently I stumbled across the Canadian based Book Club in a Box.
I was intrigued and contacted Marilyn Herbert in Toronto for some more information. Within a week my box had flown in and a selection of titles for me to try.
Book Club in a Box publish a whole series of discussion guides for a wide range of books offering that little bit extra to the reading if you want it, the chance to dig a bit deeper and unearth some of the less obvious connections. I've been to plenty of reading groups down the years where the discussion has dried up very quickly though I'm sure there must be plenty about the book that we've missed.
That said I'm often not a happy bunny when I turn the final page of a book and find myself faced with a page of reader's questions.I know I could close the book and ignore them, but they are there and suddenly those myriad thoughts at the end of a good read that you just want to allow to run free and take you somewhere interesting feel controlled and directed.
Just never satisfied that's me.
After my recent introduction to the latest Alice Sebold it was the guide to The Lovely Bones that I was after and when I've finished the novel I'm going to take a look at the Book Club in a Box book and see what happens. Also in my parcel the books to accompany Fugitive Pieces by Ann Michaels and The Way the Crow Flies by Anne-Marie MacDonald both novels that I've been meaning to read and haven't.
You can buy Book Club in a Box in old fashioned paper book or online in pdf format. With each book a photocopiable leaflet that could be handed round to other group members if wanted.
Of course all this might not be what a book group wants at all, especially if you are a bevvy of free-talking ideas people but I suspect there would be plenty of people either in a group or reading solo who would find these an enjoyable add-on to a good read.
I think Book Club in a Box would be particularly good for those who say they wouldn't join a book group because they think they're not intelligent/talkative/clever enough but still love reading and love talking about books.Book groups often perceived as an elitist huddle but I have an as yet unevaluated theory that we could halve the counselling budget in General Practice if we could introduce bibliotherapy and establish some all-inclusive Reading Groups on Prescription in surgeries.
The trouble at the coalface is that old chicken/egg conundrum.You are prohibited from starting anything new unless you first have the backing of evidence-based research, but to gather the evidence you need to set something up in the first place. I get confused just thinking about it and, though I fully appreciate the need for ethical safeguards and caution, I suspect a great deal of innovation falls flat on its face at this first hurdle.
I'll report back.
