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I swore I would never join a book club, and yet here I was, on my way.
For years, I told myself I took reading too seriously for a club. As an editor, I have too long a list of books to read to get distracted with someone else’s. But I had been feeling stressed by my busy life, and disconnected from relating with others through screens. So when my neighbor invited me, I figured: Maybe a local book club was just what the doctor ordered.
I kissed my boys goodnight, wished my husband an easy bedtime routine, and headed out the door with a novel under my arm. At the Bearded Lamb, our local pub, I found a group of women around a table sharing slices of focaccia and pistachio cake. My neighbor caught my eye and waved me over. “You’re on time. We haven’t even started talking about the book yet.”
I ordered a hazy IPA and listened as the women finished a conversation about health issues. I was eager to talk about something serious: the craft of the writing, plot pacing, the chances the writer took and the ones she didn’t. But besides my own, there wasn’t another copy of the book in sight.
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