Book Club Experience

The book club I attended met over Zoom and was hosted by a local public library. Prior to the Covid pandemic, the library didn’t offer much in the way of virtual programming, but a lot of book clubs switched to virtual during 2020 and 2021, and have continued to run virtually ever since because it attracts people who would otherwise be unable to visit the branch in person. Because it was a virtual program, there were sadly no free snacks; I had to provide my own.

The book being discussed was Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, which is something I had read before. I had not ever thought of it being a good option for a book discussion, as it is more a collection of stories than one overall story. Still, it made for a varied discussion that was both entertaining and frustrating. While I personally enjoyed the book, there was one person who had not bothered to read the book at all. They didn’t read parts of it, they didn’t skim: they just didn’t read it at all, which felt disrespectful of the book club and everyone else who did read the book. I’m sure the librarian appreciated the person’s presence from an attendance perspective, but there were several times that the person spoke up and I could see that the librarian was frustrated with the nonsensical additions from them.

The librarian led the discussion, having a list of predetermined questions to ask during the meeting. They led with “did you like the book,” which I appreciated because it allowed people to immediately state their opinion. Each person (there were about 7) took turns answering the question, which occasionally inspired a bit of discussion, especially when someone mentioned something they didn’t like about the book. However, the librarian kept the discussion on track, moving things along and promising that they had a question about that subject later on.

Most of the questions were open-ended, either along the lines of personal taste (which character was your favorite, did you have a favorite myth, was there anyone you disliked) or about the stories themselves (had you ever heard the Tyr myth before, etc). Norse Mythology ended up being a fairly good book for a discussion, because there are innumerable examples of adapted Norse myths in film and book culture today (Thor and Loki being the biggest examples) but Marvel takes great liberties with the myths in their versions of the characters. As such, most of the stories were very new to most of the attendees, which made for a good discussion (excepting the person who didn’t read the book and yet continued trying to talk about it). The librarian asking the questions typically let the attendees answer first, but they did offer their opinion as part of a natural discussion as well, which I liked because it demonstrated that they do enjoy running the book club.

Overall, it was a pretty positive book club experience. I didn’t enjoy the contributions of the non-reader (who attempted to mansplain a few myths to the librarian , who clearly knew more than the non-reader did), but in a group there is almost always going to be someone who drags things down a bit. I think the librarian could have included some historical information about Norse culture and mythology in order to give some context for the stories we discussed, but otherwise they did a good job at facilitating the discussion. If I had more time, I would likely attend more of the club meetings, as they read mostly science fiction and fantasy, though with more of an emphasis on science fiction.