Have you ever thought about joining a book club? Perhaps you have wondered what the purpose of these groups is and if there is any benefit to joining. The Diamond Valley Book Club has been meeting at the library for over a decade on Tuesday afternoons. This group chooses a contemporary book two months in advance and all books are available through the library system. The Austentatious Book Club will be starting up again in January and this group chooses from the classics: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte and the like. All the members of these groups will tell you that there are many benefits to being part of a book club:
- It creates reading accountability as you commit to reading the chosen book by the discussion deadline. If your group meets once a month, then you know you will read at least 12 books annually. If you find you like a particular author that was chosen by the group, you will read far more than the selected dozen.
- You will delve deeper into the book than a quick read-through usually allows. Knowing that you will be discussing the material helps you slow down and actually digest what you are reading. It’s amazing what little details you notice that otherwise you would skip over.
- Want to keep your brain sharp and develop critical thinking? Book clubs are an effective way to do this. By working through and discussing the book together, many aspects of a topic can be uncovered. This helps to keep the brain active and having to recall incidents or passages from a book is a great way to keep the memory sharp.
- People from different backgrounds and life experiences, see literature in different ways. So many different perspectives can be discovered in a book club discussion. This allows for you to see things in a new way that you would miss if you were reading by yourself.
- After two plus years of pandemic isolation, socialization is something we are all craving, and a book club is a wonderful way to meet with others and make friends with other book lovers. Who wouldn’t want a bunch of bibliophiles as besties?
- Finally, book clubs foster a love of literature, whether the classics or contemporary. Many members of the classic book club at the library have expressed their appreciation of these older works of fiction and how much they have learned about history, the living conditions of the times, the lives of women and the plight of women authors, as well as the beautifully written prose and exquisite use of language. (Can you guess I’m a fan?)
If you are interested in joining either of our groups, please contact the library at 403-933-3278.
Congratulations are due to the winners of our annual Sheep River Ramblers photo contest. First prize goes to Sylvia Angelini for A Magical Early Morning Hike; second place to Minette Rafuse-Monette for Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth and third place to Sylvia again for “My Heavenly Place”. The top 13 winning photos will be featured in the Sheep River Ramblers 2023 Wall Calendar.
