There is that lovely feeling of one reader telling another, 'You must read this.' I've always wanted to write a book like that, with the sense that you are contributing to the discourse in middle America, a discourse that begins at a book club in a living room, but then spreads. That is meaningful to me.
I have this book club, and we don't read one book; we offer up a few suggestions and create a library over time.
I still have a book club with my friends from when I was 5. That's the privilege of growing up in a place where people want to remain. It's a huge gift.
Facebook is not very good at dealing with named groups; they're not very good at saying, 'We've got this book club and I'm a member and you're not.' But membership is one of the precursors to a lot of social action.
I do, in fact, have a book club. I meet with a couple of guys once a month of a lunchtime discussion of some interesting text, usually, but not always, philosophical.
If there is going to be any meaningful sales, it's going to be through word of mouth and people recommending it to their book club and then a thousand more book clubs do it, and then you get into real sales numbers.
I have not been in a book club where there were any men, and I have not, in fact, heard of book groups that were mixed.
Getting out of the hospital is a lot like resigning from a book club. You're not out of it until the computer says you're out of it.
Maybe just as many women writers as male writers could be billed as the next great American writer by their publisher. Maybe book criticism sections could review an equal amount of female and male writers. Maybe Oprah could start putting some books by women authors in her book club, since most of her audience is women.
I always loved jokes. It's such a dumb, facile thing to say, but it's true. I remember being a kid and getting those joke books from the Scholastic Book Club and loving comedy from a very young age.
