Book Group

I’ve never been part of a book group before and to be honest I’ve always been a hit or miss reader. I spent most of my school years avoiding relationships with the likes of Arthur Miller, Charles Dickens and Chaucer, and instead spent my time in the picture filled pages of Creem, Rolling Stone and Hit Parader. For years I couldn’t tell you the characters in Huckleberry Finn, but I could easily rattle off the original line up of the Allman Brothers, Moody Blues or tell you who played lead on “You Really Got Me (it was Jimmy Page).”

Our book group has been affectionately referred to as “Gay Man’s Book Club” for no other reason that it seems strange to guys outside of our group to have a bunch of dudes sitting around munching on finger food and discussing the plot lines, themes, symbolism and merits of Toni Morrison’s “Soma.” When I mention the book group to other friends I always try to toughen our image up by letting them know that the books are really an excuse to imbibe good bourbon, drink beer, fart, and relive our days of past glory, but to be honest it never really works. I may as well be telling them that I’m part of a knitting circle. I always get questions like, “Does the best kisser get to pick the book”, and “is it a formal event or can you wear any old dress?” Why can’t we just all get along?

Speaking of dresses, there’s another book group in our neighborhood that has been organized, facilitated and attended by the women folk in the hood and their ever expanding circle of friends. They have had a consistent streak of reading, meeting and discussing for nine or so years. They appear to be very organized, prepared and they have a system that they utilize to pick their selections. There may be literary weighting and voting involved, and their discussions are probably far more thought provoking than we’ve been able to conjure up. I suspect if they wished to, they could channel their collective energy and intellect and change the world, but in defense of us guys and our meetings… we usually have chicken wings.

The thing about the books that get selected is that they seem to reflect the personalities of the guys who do the selecting. You can definitely pick out the differences between the picks of literary types and what I’ll refer to as the Average Joes. The literary types have provided deep meaning and dense offerings that are widely respected some receiving Pulitzer recognition, while the Average Joes offer tales of football players, private eyes and the occasional crazed zombie invasion.

A few evenings ago I satisfied my wife’s curiosity of our latest reading assignment and read aloud from the first chapter of House of Holes by Nicholson Baker. She lay quietly enjoying the warmth of the electric blanket while I delivered each sentence and paragraph. As the story began to unfold about the woman who found the detached arm, brought it home, fed it fish food and let it sexually molest her and her roommate, Deb grew anxious and stated, “Is this the type of crap you guys have been reading?” What the hell type of deranged book group are you a part of and who’s the sicko who picked this book?” Then she said, “Keep reading. I want to find out what happens next!” As I said, the books reflect the group.

To be honest, I haven’t been able to make heads nor tales of the artistic merit of what we’ve read or what any of it means. That’s why I’m also reading the “Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored.” Now that’s some good writing!