I need to take more control.
One of my greatest qualities is my organizational skills, but I haven’t really implemented that into this book club we’ve got going on. We’re pretty much just winging it at every meeting. We touch on the book, but most of the conversation is really not about the book at all. I’d like to guide the discussion a bit more.
One of my lesser qualities is my difficulty in remembering plot points. I mentioned at our last meeting, when asked about my favorite book character, that I don’t store books in my mind. I have a diffucult time remembering authors and storylines of books that I’ve read. As a Lit major, I read a lot in college, and I developed the habit of purging a book from my mind after I was done with it. That is especially true of books I read quickly (which is every book that I really enjoy).
So I made it a point to write questions as I was reading our current book, Queenie. I read it in just over two days because it was really entertaining and flowed easily. I decided that I need to go into our next meeting prepared with questions to lead the group discussion. I’ve never been much of a discussion leader, I’m more of a listener, but this is a great group to practice these skills with.
I am really enjoying this book club, and I hope to grow it once we get the kinks sorted out. I need to develop a better method for choosing books with the group, and I think using the polls feature in our group chat (that was also implemented at the last meeting) will facilitate book selections.
I’ll let you know how we all liked (or not) Queenie after our next meeting at the end of the month. In the meantime I’m still reading through Octavia’s Brood. I’m not rushing through this one, I’m enjoying it slowly, but I’ll let you know when I’m done.
Until next time,
Happy reading!
-Christine
Christine Gabriélle 