Book Clubbing at DGLM

by Rachel

 
This week, the DGLM office talked more books, as another book club meeting was held around the all-purposes back office table.

The book club is a little different to any I’ve been involved with before because, for starters, we don’t all read the same book. The DGLM book club usually involves all of us reading a different book--this time we chose novels from the great books lists that were compiled over the summer by staff and interns. Another thing that makes this book club different is that we’re not only evaluating books as readers, but as people in the publishing industry. The reports we give involve ways we would pitch the book, offering our real opinions (some in praise, some…not so much in praise), and then talking about how they performed and whether we'd have picked them out of slush.

This time around, here is what we read:

• Jane read The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken
• Miriam read Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
• Chasya read The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
• Jessica read What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
• Jim read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
• Lauren read The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• Stacey read Ordinary People by Judith Guest
• I read After All These Years by Susan Isaacs

Following the DGLM book club this week, a few of us were eager to get our hands on books others had reported on, so the idea of a book club where everyone reads a different book is especially great because it allows us to hear about books we might not have heard of or seen in bookstores, and it also introduces us to amazing new authors. I really like this concept because bookstores can sometimes be overwhelming with all those titles on display, and it can be difficult to know what or who to start reading.

  

And, believe it or not, we’ve already chosen books to read for our next book club meeting next month. This time we’ll be reading books from the New York Times Notable Books of 2009, which Jim wrote about recently. I’m excited about this because I’ll be reading from an author I’ve never heard of, and discovering new writers is a passion of mine. Have you discovered amazing authors from book clubs?