I love reading books. I love discussing books. I love people who love to talk books. But somehow I’m not in any book clubs.
This is not for a lack of trying.
Our local indie bookshop has lots of options, but my Personal Weirdness makes me question if I actually belong there. I know I do. But still.
There are several book clubs hosted by very nice people in my neighborhood, none of which I’ve ever been invited to (except once, when I hinted heavily that I wanted to be part of it, and the actual meeting started at nine pm. Hahahahahahaha thank you, but that is past my bedtime, madame).
So, now I have the next best thing. A couple’s book club. Not couples’. Couple’s. One couple. Me and my husband. Reading together. Out loud. When the weather is good, outside under a tree. When it’s cold, inside near a fire. We’ve been doing this for more than a year, and we’ve read some truly excellent books together. I’ll share a few of our standout favorite titles in a minute, so hang with me. First, I’ll tell you how this is actually a vanity project.
I read all the books. Out loud.
To an audience of 1 (one) totally literate adult.
Because something I’ve missed about teaching (totally literate high school sophomores) is reading out loud. I love that people will randomly reach out to me via socials to say, “Mrs. W, remember when you read us _____? That was a great book.” Something precious. (And sometimes the message is “Mrs. W, I hated that book. Thanks for reading it to us.” And that’s almost as good.)
So I read books to my husband. Sometimes this requires a bit of on-the-fly editing (he’s much more sensitive to language than I am, so I soften some of the things he’d find most objectionable). Often, it ends in tears.
I cry when I read aloud. More than I do when I read silently. Something about having big emotions pass through me while I’m actively speaking—it brings the tears to the surface. Here is a sampling of books I’ve read with my husband in the past 18 months that have made me cry:
My Friends by Fredrik Backman
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt
Good choices, right? Well, of course right. And lots of other great books that don’t make me cry. I have to put in a good word for the ones that make me laugh harder than I cry (see My Friends and Anxious People, also by Backman, which are both the kind of magical that can get me breathless from both laughing and crying, sometimes on the same page).
I’ve got the next couple picked out, but I’m always up for a recommendation. What should we read next?