Can we talk about how our book club picks better books when we argue about them first? | Book Club Debates - Freelance Forum - The Community for Independent Professionals
Can we talk about how our book club picks better books when we argue about them first?
Last month at our meeting in Phoenix, we spent 45 minutes fighting over whether to read Pachinko or a short thriller, and the thriller won by one vote. Here's the thing: the thriller got a 4.8 average rating from us, our best score in 8 months, while the books we all agree on usually land around 3.2 and nobody has much to say. I think the fight itself does something, like we show up already caring before we even crack the spine. Does your group vote fast and keep the peace, or do you let it get messy and see what happens?
Ha, a friend of mine had the opposite happen, their group got into a huge fight over a memoir and two people quit the club over it. They still talk about that book years later though, so maybe the mess is the whole point.