Two weeks ago, I joined my first online book club. Not such a new concept except this one runs on Twitter. Each fortnight, the Twitter Book Group selects a book for members to read and in return, readers post pithy comments (which let’s face it, with a 140 character limit succinct is the name of the game.)
Book clubs are a very appealing invention. The work is selected by another group member, bookshop or library which means there’s a very good chance I won’t have read it or I’d never think to read it. That’s kind of the point; broaden your reading palette, 
discuss the experience and be a better person for it. Here was my chance to go global and share notes with readers from Tumbi Umbi to Timbuktu.
What a great idea! I proclaim, popping into my local library to borrow book number one, Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey. I’ve read Fforde before, the Eyre Affair, and at 386 pages, Shades of Grey promised much.
Well, in the allotted two weeks I’ve read 169 pages. I’m not a slow reader, usually averaging about 50 pages an hour. Unless I am on a real deadline with interviews or book reviews, reading is an activity I do for pleasure not to be first past the post.
But when I logged on to Twitter this morning to see what other people have been posting, I discovered that everyone else has moved onto Book Two: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.
Yipes! All of a sudden I’m in a time warp, at the back of the aerobics class, hopelessly out of time and unable to see most of the moves. Gawky in lime green lycra and feeling less fit and fabulous than fat and flabby.
I’m sure the other 731 people in the bookclub must lead busy lives too. And what with Christmas looming, Thanksgiving and other religious and secular festivals, time is of the essence. How did they do it?
Maybe they are skimmers. Maybe they said they read it just to be in the groove and disguise the fact they too have only read 169 pages. Did they only read the first and last paragraph of each chapter, selected pages, or the blurb on the inside front cover? Or maybe, just maybe, they put their lives on hold for two weeks; took annual leave, sick leave or went AWOL.
Because this book is not easy. Dare I say, its slow going, hard to keep track of and full of details and injokes that bored the socks off me.
Naturally, all the tweeters are saying things like, loving it, great new universe and quirky. Surely I can’t be the only person sweating my way through the experience on the metaphorical Stairmaster of Reading?
At last I find someone who tweets, If anyone is struggling to enjoy Shades of Grey~persevere. I found it one of those books that suddenly ‘clicks’.
God I hope Mark from Devon is right. But surely, and this is me wearing my writer’s hat for a quick moment, surely a book should click well before page 169?
Writing 101 tells us aspiring scribes that you must have a hook.
Page one, line one sentence one = hook.
Here’s Fforde’s opener for Shades of Grey:
It began with my father not wanting to see the Last Rabbit and ended up with my being 
eaten by a carnivorous plant.
Now that’s a hook, a really great hook. Read on it says.
Writing 101 follows up with more good advice such as introduce your main characters early on, set up conflict, maintain tension on every page, make sure it flows, pacing.
Aaah, there we have it. For me devouring this book required the same intestinal fortitude as confronting a bowl of All Bran each morning and reminding myself it is for my own good.
Now the question is, can I tackle another one? If Book One Week One didn’t have me switching off the phone and reading under the covers until the early dawn, what promise does Book Two hold?
Anyway, I’m already so far behind in my homework (because it does feel like homework) that every assignment forthwith will be late and I’ll always be the last person in the conversation.
And you know what I really want to know? How come with a readership of over 700 supposedly real people (or perhaps they are fictitious members????) I’m the only one saying I hate the book, don’t want to finish it and that fabulous cliché Not his best work.
Is it possible that people are fearful of treating an online book club with the same fervour and chardy-fuelled debate of real book club, and if so, what’s the point? I may as well walk into my local library and play eenie, meenie, miney mo, pick a book and off we go!
Its early days and the concept is so good that I do think The Twitter Book Club is worth persevering with. Maybe you can all join and inject 140 characters of reality into the argument- chardy-fuelled or otherwise. Then we might have an etherclub deserving of the title Book Club.
meredithjaffe 