A Jen Too Many

I may be the crazy reading woman, with 34 books currently on my PDA. I may be known to read while unloading the dishwasher. Some of you might have witnessed me walking into parked cars as I strolled down the street with my nose in a book. (And then, instead of noticing I've walked into a parked car, get confused and wonder why I'm not moving forward anymore.)

But I am not book club material.

I joined a book club once, not long after we moved here, thrilled to have been invited and desperately hoping to make new friends. (I was so lonely right then.) I only lasted a few months. I found, unfortunately, that I like what I like and I don't like reading what other people like. The books the other members selected either bored or annoyed me. The book that I suggested* bored them. They were very nice women, but it just wasn't a good fit, so I quit.

I've just been invited to join another book club. The first meeting (which I didn't attend) was last week, following which I got an email letting me know what books they've chosen for the next seven months.

Wow. Is it just my limited experience, or are all book clubs like this? There are two non-fiction self-improvement type books (Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, and How to Win Friends and Influence People.) There are two classic 19th century romances (Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Eyre.) There is one family saga novel from the early 20th century (The Good Earth.) There are two books that I'd never heard of, but which, when I looked them up, really, really, really did not appeal me. One is series of poems about a girl who accidentally kills her pregnant mother (Out of the Earth), and the other is the autobiography of a woman who survived a horrible crime and put her life back together (Forgiving the Dead Man Walking.)

Granted - when you get a large enough group together, not everyone is going to like the same things, so it's probably hard to find something that everyone can agree on. And this is a group of women from my church, so I can imagine the participants that night felt a certain degree of internal pressure to suggest "appropriate" books. These certainly tend to be very safe choices.

There's a thread of commonality here, though, that turns me off, a sort of grimly educational / good-for-you feel to the selected books. Reading, this list says to me, is a serious business. No time for fooling around! We must be Improving Ourselves! We must be Learning! We must Familiarize Ourselves With The Classics! We must Educate Ourselves!

Ummm, seriously? Is reading that hard to do? I mean, isn't anyone interested in reading for fun? (Not that people don't read Jane Eyre for fun. Not something I would do, but I've heard it's happened.) But it's the same sort of thing, to be honest, that I saw in the other book club. The books were almost all Books With a Message. There were only two exceptions - the one I chose, and The Blue Castle,** by L.M. Montgomery. Both books were received with something less than enthusiasm. I received the distinct impression that they were considered to be rather too light and fluffy. Not serious enough. Not educational enough.***

I read because I love reading. I love stories. When I was a little kid I used to beg my mom to read to me because I loved the stories so much and wanted more of them. I couldn't wait to learn how to read, because then I wouldn't have to wait for anyone to read to me - I could read the stories to myself, anytime I wanted! And when I was naughty? I was punished by having my books taken away. (Fate. Worse. Than. Death. Trust me. A totally panic-inducing threat.)

Books aren't medicine. They're not something you force down, because they're good for you. Books are dessert. Books are hot fudge dripping down over slightly melty vanilla ice cream, with strawberry syrup stuff around the edges, toasty bits of almond sprinkled over it all, and a generous dollop of real whipped cream on the top, with a thoroughly carcinogenic, but oh-so-yummy maraschino cherry in a color nature never invented.

They're the sanity pill that lets you go one more hour without screaming at anyone. They're what you tear yourself away from in order to do important things, like feed your family, and earn your paycheck. They're the delicious treat you hide in your purse and take out when you're supposed to be shopping while your daughter is at preschool. They're the addiction that lets you escape when things are Just Too Much, feeling your muscles and posture relax as you slide into another world, where the problems are only real to the characters, and no threat to your life at all. Because real life has enough problems, and I don't want any more of it than I already have to deal with, thank you.

I'm just not book club material. There's nothing self-improving about ice-cream sundaes, after all.
___________________________________________

*The Beekeeper's Apprentice, by Laurie R. King. Fantastic book. First of a fantastic series. I loooove the Mary Russell series. Pink puffy hearts love it. The only Sherlock Holmes books I have ever liked that were written by anyone other than Arthur Conan Doyle.

**I immediately fell in love with it and it is now one of my all-time favorite romances, right up there with Daddy Long Legs.

***Or, as L.M. Montgomery said in The Blue Castle: "It was permissible, even laudable, to read to improve your mind and your religion, but a book that was enjoyable was dangerous."