PERSISTING: The Story of A Book Group by Penny Dolan

During lockdown - surely the most overused opening right now? -  some bookish things changed in my life. Today I want to write about one of these ordinary, everywhere but special groups that many of you may belong or have belonged to - or not belonged to because of your own reading preferences.  Here's my story:

The Chocolate Biscuit Book Group* started years ago as a staff-led, after-hours monthly meeting at the local Waterstones bookshop. The choice slanted towards the next highly promoted title which could be interesting but, even with discount, an expensive obligation if you didn't like the book quite that much. Sometimes, if the choice was a film-tie-in paperback - the kind where actors appear on the front cover - you might have a plainer copy already on the shelf at home. Lucky you! 

However, within a year,  both the two staff "minders" had moved to bigger, better branches and nobody wanted the unpaid responsibility of after-hours opening.  Yet people persisted. 

The bookgroup met around eight, in one of the various large bars of local hotels and pubs in town. The "readers" increased, spreading convivially out across the bar but that meant the discussion broke up into small cliques. The long hot summer took away several members and then the dark winter months shrank the group even further.  

What could be done? We, a few remaining members, persisted. In an economical mode.

We rented a small, cheap church community-room opposite the local library, whose only free slot was from quarter-past-six to quarter-past-seven, between church meetings and music rehearsals.

Happily, this odd time worked well for the now all-female group: it fitted easily between work and home, was brief enough for people with caring responsibilities and late night transport was no longer a difficulty. 

The timing might suggest a cocktail hour but we opted for minimum refreshments: tea or coffee and simple chocolate biscuits. We used our sixty minutes for small fragments of news and lots of book talk. Over the years, people came and went - house moves, work moves, family changes - but still the book group was there, persisting.


We also got round the book title problem. We subscribed - like twenty more local book groups - to our library's book group loan scheme. Through this excellent scheme, we could collect multiple copies of one title from central stock just before one meeting and delivered the pile back again in a months time. This quantity of borrowed books also explains publishing's great passion for creating popular Book Group titles and adding those annoying Talking Points pages at the end of novels.  

We could choose our own titles too: each year, during an enjoyable June meeting, we created a reading list that spread across a wide range of genres and interests and all was satisfactory. Each month, the Chocolate Biscuit Book Group* continued meeting.

Then came the cuts. Our town library - one of the original Carnegie libraries - survived the county wide cuts but with a thinned-out staff, service and stock and eventually with an adult education service moving into the building as well. Our supply of monthly Book Group copies grew erratic,  but we persisted. 

We devised a cunning book list, suggesting a choice of three titles per month for the librarian and for a while,  it worked. The librarian ordered in whichever one of the three titles was in greatest stock.


We usually received a mix of hardback, paperback, large print and audio-cd versions so there were often polite discussions about people's preferred formats:
hardback for best design and book feel but heavy to read in bed;
paperback was useful unless the font was tiny; 
large print was enjoyed for easy reading but never (to my mind) beautiful 
while audio was great for listening  but not as speedy as the written word if you were in a rush. 
We were going well, with titles happily lined up to see us through late spring and early summer.

And then came Covid. 

That was it.  After more than a decade, our small but sociable hour had gone. Some people did not want to commit to reading anything, let alone thinking about it.  Some were involved with shielding or isolating or coping with changes to family arrangements. Some did not want to think beyond the "now" moment, either,  even though they knew it was there.  Some were dealing with all of these and all reactions were sensible and understandable.

Clearly, what many people had liked about the book group was the sociability, the chance to be together with the books as a focus. Maybe even more than they liked the books themselves? An interesting thought.


Anyway,with the library closed its doors, our monthly title no longer mattered a jot, nor among the general awfulness. did the missing meeting matter. What clearly did matter was that not everyone in the group liked using modern technology to the same degree. There would be no Zoom meetings for the Chocolate Biscuit Book Group.*. 

Instead, gradually, we've been sending the group our own email (short or long) each month, keeping in touch with oddments of news or thoughts about any screen stuff seen, or gardens or anything. Just saying hello, really. And, occasionally, some of us mention book titles we've read.  Truly, it's about the people, not the pages.

However, now there's been news of libraries re-opening, but not as we knew them.

Our library, like others, will open in a limited, phased way sometime in July, mainly for the  return of books and the collection of orders; later in the summer, people will be allowed in to use the computer screens . . . 

But the essential library pleasure of idle browsing is a long long way away, and what will the state of the book stock be by then? Remembering that in the past, library books were thought to spread disease, will anyone in the book want to borrow books as before? Or will it all be e-book loans?

Should the Chocolate Biscuit Book Group* even try to make a new reading list?

Or plan to meet again sometime in the future?

And, after all these years, is persisting even possible for Chocolate Biscuit Book Group* ?

As for your own Book Groups? How are they going?  How are they working?

Penny Dolan
@pennydolan1 

ps The Chocolate Biscuit Book Group* is a fictitious name. But somehow I'm feeling rather peckish right now.