Why a Book Club? -Madhubani



You may say people don’t read anymore. I’ll say that, in fact, the number of bookworms on the block is much higher than it used to be till a few years ago. The reason – simply a mind-boggling diversity of genres! While some may love crime thrillers, others may go for romantic paperbacks. While someone may relish fantasy, another may pick self-help books. Divided by tastes, albeit, they’re all united by one identity- readers! Our idea was to bring together different kinds of readers on a ‘common, non-judgmental, optimistic’ platform (as we advertised it) and talk about books and beyond. That’s how we came up with ‘The Book Club’ at Central University of Tamil Nadu.

It all started on a Tuesday evening when around six of us settled down on the steps outside the multipurpose auditorium to talk about the last book that each of us had read. One thing led to another and soon we had a list of good-reads from various different genres. When we talk about our favorite things, we make it seem the best thing in the world right? That’s what happened when we started talking about our favorite genres – each one seemed as interesting as the other and soon we were ready to step into unexplored territory. 

 
To run a club seriously, you ought to have structure. We fixed a theme for each meet. We’ll talk about each of them in details eventually. We also created some activities. ‘What’s the last book you read?’ would be like an intro-session where we’d kick-start the book meet. Newcomers would talk about the books they like. ‘First chapters’ involved reading the first chapter of a new book together, a paragraph each. Besides discussing the theme, we’d have these regular activities in each meet. After a meet, we’d post the minutes in the common Whats-app group.

The Book Club was never just about books. Books were rather the base from where we’d take off on a joyride through movies, music, politics and social issues. Isn’t that what reading is all about – expanding horizons? From short stories to self-help books, from Anita Nair to Bob Dylan-we celebrated literature in its myriad forms. This blog is all about the different ‘book meets’ we had this year and much more. Fasten your seat belts for an amazing journey and as I always say- read, share, create – until next Sunday!


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