Book Clubs: Part 2

The Long and the Short of it

You may think I’m completely bonkers but I have come to the conclusion that there is a perfect length for a book club novel and it’s 300 pages, give or take!

I have just conducted a scientific survey by going to my own bookshelves, picking out many of the titles used in book clubs, flicking to the back and finding that the range was not less than 280 pages and not more than 350. QED!

Having said that, I know many club that have tackled The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver which comes in at a whopping 614 pages, every one a gem. And there’s many clubs that have loved The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett who manages to tell a wonderfully imaginative and succinct tale over a mere 128 pages.

A long book is too much for most busy people to get through in the time available (usually a month) and a short book does not always have enough meat for an entire evening’s discussion. Having said that, The Trial by Franz Kafka, coming in at a crisp 197 pages (depending on the translation) inspired such a thought provoking discussion with my gang that I cannot recommend it highly enough.

On a practical level, book club members will get to the end of a novel that is a reasonable length, even if it’s not something they’re particularly enjoying. And if everyone has read the book, everyone can fully take part in the discussion.

So, before you choose a novel for your book club, give a thought to its size and then proceed to the next stage in the process of trying to please some of the people some of the time because take it from me, you won’t please all of the people all of the time!

~Posted by Mary

The Write Way

"From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."

Good old Groucho Marx, always reliable for a pithy quotation when you need one! After wading through an indigestible "best seller" I got to thinking about the common misconception that everyone has a book inside them. Sometimes it would be better had it indeed remained so - inside them.

When an aspiring writer (who’d probably never put pen to paper in her entire life) said that she could have easily written one of the visiting author’s hugely popular novels, Maeve Binchy, the culprit in question replied: "Well why don’t you?"

Still, we can all dream. And while we dream we buy endless books on the subject of writing: How to Write a Novel! How not to Write a Novel! How to Publish your Book! How to make Money from your Writing! The list is endless, the advice is plentiful, but the difference between those who write and those who don’t is bums on seats; it’s often as simple as that. Some write with a pen, others clack away on old typewriters, while computers have spawned bloggers to beat the band. The first classic to be hammered out on a typewriter was by Mark Twain while Jack Kerouac used a telex for his one page wonder, On the Road. Nowadays, we have every kind of convenience to help us hammer those words out while my good friend, Alice, in Greystones by the sea, writes her marvellous short stories with a pencil on any available scraps of paper to hand.

Stephen King’s brief memoir entitled, On Writing, gives us a mere glimpse into his world where he churns out huge doorstoppers of novels that sell in their millions and are then turned into block busting movies. Everyone wants to know how he does it, what his secret is and so they buy his book and find that he sits at home, putting in the hours, honing his craft and filling the blank pages. It’s the same with all successful writers: we want to know from where they get their inspiration.

One of my favourite books is a novella by Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader. When I read the blurb on the jacket I wasn’t too keen, but I should have trusted this author who has a vivid imagination and a delicate mastery of the English language. It’s about reading, and books and opens with the Queen of England walking the corgis outside the kitchen garden where a mobile library is stationed. In she pops and starts a love affair with all things literary, even going so far as throwing a garden party for those who make their living by the pen. When she sidles up to a certain Scottish author to ask him, politely, where he gets his inspiration from, he replies, rather tartly: "It doesn’t come, Your Majesty. You have to go out and fetch it."

I know plenty of people who write far better than I do. But I put in the hours, banging out words, shaping them, putting them in some reasonable order, working with my limitations and filling the page. I may never have the word ‘author’ in my passport but I sure as hell am going to keep on trying.