Walking book clubs, knitting book clubs ... readers aren’t satisfied with just chatting over a bottle of wine anymore, they want something different
Every month, I lead a group for a walk across Hampstead Heath while we talk about a book. Emily’s Walking Book Club works on the premise that it is easiest to talk to someone when you fall in step with one another, side-by-side. I’m convinced that the movement of our limbs aids the movement of our thoughts, and the fresh air and beautiful views help too.
Somewhere between 10 and 40 of us gather to walk and talk. I wonder what our collective noun would be – a series of walking book clubbers? An edition, a print run? Crucially, we can all talk at once, as the group fragments into twos, threes and fours to allow myriad conversations. We periodically regroup to recap, read aloud and launch into a new topic. This means that no single reader can dominate and, if there’s a clash of personalities, it’s easy to avoid one another.
Reading is a necessarily anti-social activity: the words on the page are taken in only if the wider world, with its many distractions, is zoned out. Perhaps it is surprising, then, that books can inspire socialising. Sometimes a book is so good that it demands to be talked about, ideally with someone else who’s read it. More
Somewhere between 10 and 40 of us gather to walk and talk. I wonder what our collective noun would be – a series of walking book clubbers? An edition, a print run? Crucially, we can all talk at once, as the group fragments into twos, threes and fours to allow myriad conversations. We periodically regroup to recap, read aloud and launch into a new topic. This means that no single reader can dominate and, if there’s a clash of personalities, it’s easy to avoid one another.
Reading is a necessarily anti-social activity: the words on the page are taken in only if the wider world, with its many distractions, is zoned out. Perhaps it is surprising, then, that books can inspire socialising. Sometimes a book is so good that it demands to be talked about, ideally with someone else who’s read it. More
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