December Book Club Feature has been running since 1997. Prospect Book Club initially formed as a part of the Prospect Magazine and focus mainly on alternate fiction and non-fiction. With such a wealth of experience and knowledge and some very detailed answers we'll hand over to them now...
When did your book club launch? And how did that come about?
The initial group of readers came together following an invitation in Prospect magazine in 1997. During the next decade or so new members were recruited via an advertisement in the magazine. From the start there was a commitment to alternate fiction and non-fiction, which we still maintain. Over time people have left and others have joined, but some of the current active members joined more than ten years ago. From the start the group has been a mixture of ages and genders. Originally men were in the majority. Currently women are.
Talk to me about how it’s developed over the years
Initially the meetings were at Prospect offices, then in people’s homes or workplaces, for a short while a pub. We now meet in one of the cafés in the South Bank centre. We write up a reports of the discussion to circulate to members unable to attend, and also to a wider group, who no longer attend regularly, but like to know what we are reading, and who often read the books we have chosen. We no longer have a formal link with the magazine, which now hosts paid for events with authors. This means our recruitment has tended to be drawn from members’ existing social networks, and we are keen to widen it out again.
Describe your book club in three words
Stimulating, engaging, challenging
How do you choose your books?
We choose by consensus. Anyone can suggest a book to add to the “simmering list” of books anyone thinks worthy of consideration. But we often choose a book not already on the list, because we want to read something immediately topical, or because we want something short after a long book, or something lightweight after a serious one. Ideally we like two people to have already read a book, but we don’t always follow this.
How often do you meet?
Monthly on a Monday
Where do you meet?
One of the cafes (either Festival Hall terrace, or Queen Elizabeth Hall) on the South Bank, near Waterloo station.
What is the format of your meetings?
We do a quick poll of who liked a book and who didn’t, then we go round the table to allow each member present to make the key points they want to. We then have a general discussion, which does focus around the book, but also tends to range more widely, referring back to other books we have read, and also to the wider context.
What are you reading right now?
For October we are reading Who Owns England? by Guy Shrubsole. For November we are reading The Friend by Sigrid Nunez.
Do you have a favourite format of book? (hardback, paperback, ebook, audiobook)?
We limit the choice to books available in paperback, although some members borrow hardback copies from libraries and others read as ebooks. The paperback stipulation is to set an implicit cost limit.
What is your favourite book of 2020 so far?
It is not exactly a favourite, as it not an enjoyable read, but of the books we have read so far this year The Chaneysville Incident by David Bradley has stayed with all of us.
Do you collectively have a favourite author?
No
Do you collectively have a favourite genre?
Not really. Our non-fiction reading tends to focus on current affairs and popular science, but we have ranged into topics as diverse as rock memoir and wild swimming. Our fiction choices are quite wide, including British and American authors and works in translation.
Has there been a particular highlight of your time together?
A straw poll did not produce a consensus on this one, although variously members have suggested HhHH by Laurent Binet, Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, Payback by Margaret Atwood and Lab Girl by Hope Jahren.
Talk us through your books of the year so far…
The Chaneysville Incident, David Bradley
The novel was published in 1981, after 10 years work by Bradley, who produced 1 other novel in a career otherwise taken up with non-fiction essay writing. The novel is narrated by an African-American academic historian who returns to the his home town in rural Pennsylvania to organise the funeral of his father's last remaining close friend. During the week in which this occurs he explores the history of his father and the research he himself did in trying to understand the titular incident, a massacre that occurred on the eve of the US Civil War as a group of runaway slaves were captured and killed by professional hunters who had travelled from the South. There are multiple layers of plot to unwind, and the narrator himself has a sense of self-doubt alongside his brooding anger.
Long, wide-ranging, a bit hard to get into; some members read it a second time, when it made more sense. Led to interesting discussions about environmental concerns, both current and historic, and the timber industry in North America. There were some echoes of Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, which we had previously read.
Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Caroline Criado Perez
The book is a survey of the ways in which women-centred issues and concerns are marginalised or omitted entirely in many fields due to the ways in which relevant data is collected and problems are framed. The examples range across medicine, recruitment, education and the broad field of international development. Response to the book was favourable, with several readers finding parts of it revelatory.
Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead, Olga Tokarczuk
We had chosen the book before Tokarczuk’s Nobel Prize was announced, so felt prescient to be ahead of the game. Response to the book was overall positive. The novel concerns a woman living in modern Silesia, who hears about a series of killings occurring in the neighbourhood. As the story unfolds we come to question the reliability of her testimony. However it is not a straightforward mystery/thriller. Readers felt it was a very good portrayal of insular rural life with a sense of a community detached and at the margins of the larger world.
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
The book is set in the US south and western states prior to the Civil War and is concerned with slavery and the struggles to escape from it, and also the violence perpetrated to keep it in place. This is similar to part of the subject matter of "The Chaneysville Incident" by David Bradley, which we had read previously. In this book issues are dramatized and the escape “railroad” is depicted as a fantasy actual underground railway. These elements are juxtaposed with the extreme realism with which violence and sadism is portrayed, and there is no simple happy ending. The discussion ranged around the institution of slavery and its underpinning social and legal structures as well as what was portrayed in the book.
The book is by a scientist trying to introduce the topic of liquids in the field of materials science. This is an area not clearly represented in the school science curriculum. The author pointed to its relevance by discussing several kinds of liquid we encounter in everyday life, using the framing device of describing a flight to a scientific conference and then mentioning all the substances that came up. Most of the readers did not have much scientific education so were interested to hear about topics related directly to everyday matter, rather than the abstractions of elements and molecules. It was noted that the author was good at giving condensed accounts of news events such as the Fukushima nuclear plant incident. Some readers found some topics boring, and some found him too engrossed in his own subject to explain it well enough.
The Way We Eat Now, Bee Wilson
Bee Wilson's book is a non-fiction study of the current food industry. However, we read it during coronavirus lockdown, when we had all adopted different eating and shopping habits, with eating out not an option. Reception was generally positive but there was a feeling that the style was rather too rambling and anecdotal. There was little analysis of the policy and trade changes that gave rise to the current situation or to the work of food campaigners. Several readers reported that it influenced them to give up bad eating habits such as snacking.
Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout
This is an episodic novel telling stories of lives in a small American town across a period of about 25-30 years, centred around the eponymous heroine, a local schoolteacher. Olive and her husband appear in all the chapters though often only make a fleeting appearance; because of her job she knows and is known by most people. The rather "experimental" structure gives the reader the job of drawing together threads mentioned and started in different places, and understanding the ambiguities of how these characters see themselves and others. Response was generally favourable, though some readers felt that Olive was revealed as being a rather disturbed, unpleasant person when by herself.
If you were to give anyone out there some advice on setting up a Book Club what would it be?
Find books you enjoy, but which also take you sometimes out of your comfort zone.
How have you coped since Covid struck, how have you kept your love of books alive?
We did not meet in April, but since then we have been meeting over Zoom, which has worked very well, and attendance has been good. South Bank venues are not expected to open until spring 2021, so we might find ourselves meeting remotely for a while yet.
If you enjoyed this, check out our other Book Club Features.
Comments (0)
Leave A Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.