Who goes to book clubs?
By Marjorie Kehe | 07.06.09
Who makes time to go to a book club these days? More and more fiction authors. Joshua Henkin, author of “Matrimony” and “Swimming Across the Hudson,” has visited more than 175 book groups discussing one of his novels.
He’s not alone. The Daily Beast reported last week that Adriana Trigiani (”Lucia, Lucia” and “Very Valentine”) has visited an average of two to three book clubs a week since 2000. Chris Bohjalian (”Skeletons at the Feast” and “Double Bind”) expects to talk to 120 book groups this year. Khaled Hosseini (”The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns”) allegedly “took a year off and went to every book group he could.”
It’s a powerful marketing tool. “The only thing that’s going to save publishing is book clubs,” Mickey Pearlman, an author, editor, and professional book-club facilitator, told the Daily Beast. (As Henkin points out, when he visits 175 book clubs, he’s guaranteed 1,750 book sales.)
But for some authors it’s also an intriguing glimpse into the lives of others. “Fiction writers are gossips,” points out Henkin. “What fiction writer doesn’t want to be invited into a stranger’s living room?”
But not all book clubs take place in someone’s living room. The Boston Globe also had a great piece this weekend on a book club for homeless readers, founded by an attorney who struck up a friendship with a homeless man he passed each morning on the Boston Common. They began to chat – about sports and about books.
One day the attorney shared a book (”Water for Elephants”) with his new friend. The enthusiastic reader passed the book around to several of the other homeless people on the Common. It gave the attorney an idea and soon a new book club was born. You can see a video of the group, which meets in a Beacon Hill church on Tuesday mornings, here.
According to the Globe, a new nonprofit group, the Oasis Coalition, is now planning to replicate the group and to create dozens of similar groups for the homeless citywide.
Comments
2. Kelsey | 07.07.09
Thank God for book clubs! My first book came out late last year and I’ve done several signings - some great, some very very painful. Sometimes a book signing is just that - the signing of a single book purchased by someone pitying you.
On the other hand, you know people will show up at a book club event and they’ll have read your book. Good eats, some drinks, and lively discussion will follow.
I did a little reenactment of my experiences with both titled Book Club vs. Book Signing. You can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SufkZyIp5Fw
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
Leave a Comment
We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The comments feature is a forum to discuss the ideas in our stories. Constructive debate - even pointed disagreement - is welcome, but personal attacks on other commenters are not, and will not be published.
Tip: Do not write a novel. Keep it short. We will not publish lengthy comments. Come up with your own statements. This is not a place to cut and paste an email you received. If we recognize it as such, we won't post it.
Please do not post any comments that are commercial in nature or that violate copyrights.
Finally, we will not publish any comments that we regard as obscene, defamatory, or intended to incite violence.
1. Mary Dyer | 07.06.09
A local Central Oregon knitting group meets at Starbucks/Barns and Noble store just off a main Central Oregon traffic intersection east of Bend. We are always welcomed by a generous display of knitting, weaving, handicrafters, fashion, and personal fitness books at adjacent tables just before our regular Friday morning meeting. apparently the coffee shop and conjoined book store have found us a useful in store traffic builder. both the starbucks and book store employees are especially friendly and helpful.
even in a severe regional downturn, among some of the worst in the US here east of the Cascades in Oregon, there is still business to be won by retailers who pay diligent attention to treating their few remaining customers extremely well. we have a kind of gentlemans (or “gentlewomens” agreement a cup of expensive coffee is a kind of “cover charge” for taking up one entire end of the coffee shop for a couple hours, and their cookies are pretty tasty too.