What to Say in Book Club When You’ve Run Out of Things to Say
It takes a lot to get yourself to book club: you have to acquire a book, read that book, and then, most problematic of all: show up to spend time with other people. Other people you probably know only in the context of the hour you spend together once a month sipping rosé around a folding table.
So when you do get yourself to that folding table, it feels really satisfying to wax poetic on your favorite parts of a good book, and even better to question the author’s narrative choices in the bad ones. There’s nothing more gratifying than being the only person in the group who picked up on the protagonist’s latent sexual feelings towards his sister’s cocker spaniel. But sometimes fifteen minutes go by, everyone dutifully says whether they loved or loathed, and then silence settles over the room. Maybe everyone secretly only read the first chapter, or maybe half the people who showed up misinterpreted the ‘Giovanni’s Room Discussion’ Facebook event as an author appearance. Sometimes discussion just isn’t flowing.
But still, you’ve gotten yourself there, there’s half a bottle of rosé left, and everyone’s looking into their Dixie cups of wine praying for someone to break the silence. Here are a couple things you can say to be the book club conversational hero and to eke out enough of a discussion that people feel intellectually sustained until the next month’s meeting.
But still, you’ve gotten yourself there, there’s half a bottle of rosé left, and everyone’s looking into their Dixie cups of wine praying for someone to break the silence. Here are a couple things you can say to be the book club conversational hero and to eke out enough of a discussion that people feel intellectually sustained until the next month’s meeting.
