This week, our book club ended its year with a discussion of the venerable Chinese classic, Tao Te Ching (2012), in an excellent translation by Derek Lin. The 2500 year-old book of lessons was an unlikely though not unusual choice for us. Through 35 years, club members have mixed classics with the contemporary. We have curious and eclectic tastes.
The book club, dubbed the Summa Book Club by founding members who translated the word tongue-in-cheek from Latin to mean the "highest," begins with a summer potluck at which we choose the dates and books for our monthly Monday meetings. A couple or single (we have both) takes turns hosting the group once or twice (September to June) and prepares a short discussion along within light munchies, wine, beer and soda. It's been a good group to be a part of. My wife and I, late-comers joining in 1992, have nurtured lasting friendships formed through commonly read pages and chapters. You really get to know someone when you hear them passionately debate character motives in The Merchant of Venice.
The advantage of a regular book club is it pressures (in a nice way) members to read selections that we would not normally read (Ulysses by James Joyce springs to mind). We trust the literary judgement of fellow members -- most of the time (everyone agrees The Aquarian Conspiracy was an epic miss; the wisdom of Mary, Queen of Scots is still debated ten years later). We read the book in time for the meeting because we don't want to diss the selections of other members, and we all like to contribute -- not a lot of shy people in this group.
And, since Green Bay is home to a number of private and public colleges, we have access to outside speakers who are more than happy to talk with an engaged, reasonably intelligent group of readers about a favorite subject and author. Just this past January, for example, we invited a local retired educator who is a leader in the international Dietrich Bonhoeffer organization to talk about the Eric Metaxis biography, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (2010). It's good to nurture local literary talent as well as friendships.
My wife and I often contribute science fiction book recommendations to the group, one of our particular interests, and successfully recommended Philip K. Dick's, Man in the High Castle, during our first hosted discussion in January of 1993. Our other choices have ranged from On Writing by Stephen King, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote to Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putman. I can recall these books because one of our members, a diligent, retired and venerable newspaper editor, keeps an historical record of our books and dates. After twenty or thirty years, the list is useful so we don't repeat ourselves -- "My Antonia? No, we read that in 2004." The group tends toward non-fiction (Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankel) and biographies (An American Caesar by William Manchester), religious (Paradise Lost by John Milton) and literary (Flannery O'Connor short stories). Popular fiction is always popular such as The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and Cold Mountain by Charles Fraser. Other books are recommended on a whim (The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and You Only Grow Old Once by Dr. Seuss). They are all worthy.
Now that the 2014-2015 books have been shelved, it's time to select books for the next year. Already, we have a book bag and Kindle list filled with selections that we will bring to the potluck and will narrow them down to one or two recommendations after seeing the choices of other members. And, since a large percentage of group are journalism or English majors, we all think it is important that a summa booklist of a Summa Book Club has book titles representing all 26 letters of the alphabet. We are missing a few letters. So if you know of books that start with the letters "Q", "V" and "X", please pass along the titles. The potluck is in August.
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