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The TOTERS (Tired Old Teachers Enjoy Reading) Book Club met
this afternoon to plan next season’s reads. They have been together for many
years and been through several changes. When I moved to this town four decades
ago, there were no book clubs and I longed for one. I formed one when I was
working and finally found other readers. When death and heavy issues took a
toll on the group, it disbanded and I waited again for several years.
How does one choose books, settle on a few, when every week
some new great reads come on the market! Because we were teaches, a natural
year just fell to September through May, a school year with summer off. Today we altered that again by choosing to
read most of the year with January off and July being a luncheon and book swap.
Our voting today was also new. We each brought three titles
which we had emailed the group earlier for checking out. After a short
discussion, we voted on each person’s suggestions, three titles at a time,
which allowed for everyone to have one choice on the list. This method worked super well!
As writers we are told to read, read, read. It easy to read
but hard to put books down that are good, so often writing gets left behind. It
is tough to get a balance, to get everything worked into our spare time that we
want to do. Maybe some blog readers would be interested in the list that was
the end result of our choices today. Maybe it would help them make choices of
their own.
Calendar
August-Bittersweet: Colleen McCullough
September-Burnt District: Ellen Massey
October-Bayou Farewell: Mike Tidwell
November-Orphan Train: Christine Kline
December-Our Souls at Night: Kent Haruf
February-Plum Tree: Ellen Wisemen
March-Canterbury Sisters: Kim Wright
April-Let the Great World Spin: Colum McCann
May 5-Genre of Classics, reader’s choice
June-Voting for next reading season
6 comments:
I love your list - and only know one of them (which I haven't read). Colleen McCullough's Bittersweet. I am ambivalent about her work, but may even read this one.
Are you going to tell us about the books as you read them? I hope so.
I haven't read any of these books, and hope you will report on your blog about them as you read them. For a classic I recommend Anthony Trollope, love that writer and his Chronicles of Barsetshire.
It sounds like your book group is a fun one. Please do let us know about the books after you read them. I'm always looking for a new book to read.
The only author I've heard of is Colleen McCullough, but I'll keep your whole list because I love finding new authors. :)
Claudia, your technique for choosing the year's books is fabulous: organized, fair to everyone, and a specific way to carefully make selections. This is quite a list. I'll be eager to hear what you and the others think of each book.
It sounds like you have a wonderful, supportive and stimulating group of friends.
Good reaad
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