One of the things on my big life list is to host a book club. I finally decided to act on this ambition during a time when I only consume textbooks and journal articles. About 10 people in year 1 SLP are in for the challenge. We will be reading a book over the holidays and meeting to discuss themes and eat sugary snacks in the new year.
It is a challenge to choose a book that would appeal to everyone in the group/me. I decided to choose 3 and let the group vote (this process took me 2 weeks!). Some of the things i considered:
1. Length: 400-ish pages or less*. Poor, over-read grad students get 2.5 weeks of holidays and I wasn't about to ask anyone to spend the whole time reading (unless they *cough* wanted to).
2. Style: going for non-fiction but modern (no Victorian-era novels) with rich theme
3. Availability: re-emphasis on poor, I tried to choose books that would be easily available at the library or used book stores (ie. not so common as to always be checked out, old enough to have a paperback edition, etc.)
4. Cringe-factor: does it make me cringe. I'm trying to be open to books I wouldn't always choose but some things are just out (aka Twilight).
The choices:
Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
The Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
I don't really prefer one over the others. Here's to books!
*If I length was not a factor the top 3 would have looked significantly different: A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry), The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (Wroblewski), and East of Eden (Steinbeck).
1 comment:
Can we have a sub-book-club club for those who intend on devouring A Fine Balance over the holidays? Cause that's all I have planned while simultaneously shoving my face full of bonbons.
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