A New Reading Group
May. 25th, 2017 05:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisnewdayFor the past several days, I've been preparing for the reading group which I've decided to try in the village of Liverpool. It meets at 11 AM on the last Thursday of every month, except June and December, at the public library where, several years ago, I belonged to a writer's group.
Liverpool, as a whole, is a fairly affluent community with a decent school system and an extensive library program. It belongs to the county library system but offers many programs and activities which other towns and villages within the same system do not. It's also the village where I came to teach many years ago when I first graduated from the state university.
When I began settling into my new home, in the western suburb where my daughter and her family live, I first looked for a writer's group somewhere nearby. And what I discovered was that all the ones that I'd known about in the past had, for various reasons, met their demise, the only evidence of their once having existed being the abandoned websites which eerily float like ghost ships on the digital waters of the internet.
I then decided that I'd try searching out a book club, something I'd never done in the past, and found that the largest and most active seemed to be a Meet-Up group which calls itself the Syracuse Book Club. However, after preparing myself for the April meeting by reading Sharon Guskin's The Forgetting Time, I decided that their choice of venue, a bar which was also located, coincidentally, in the village of Liverpool, was not really my, er, cup of tea. Or whatever one's beverage of choice might happen to be.
After searching for something associated with a church or library or bookstore closer to home, I settled on the one at the Liverpool library. They seemed to have a format that made sense for an organized reading activity and met in surroundings that suggested a focus on books rather than the bottom of a beer mug. Not to be overlooked, of course, were the improved chances of a safe drive home.
By the time I made that decision, I had only a week or so to locate and read the upcoming selection, which I did, only to discover, a couple of days later, that I'd taken a wrong turn on the library's extensive website and had actually been reading the selection from May of the previous year. Which was unfortunate because I found myself quite comfortable with the book, Willa Cather's classic My Antonia, but also because, by the time I discovered my mistake, I had only 4 days to read the current selection, Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Underground Railroad.
However, I did find it to be an easy, if uncomfortable read and so, if I can grab a quick shower after dropping my grandson off at school in the city, I'll be fully prepared for my first meeting with what they call the Thursday Morning Book Klatch.
I do feel compelled to mention that, along with the reading, I've found myself speculating as to who and what a "Thursday Morning Book Klatch" might look like. I guess it's kind of a natural thing, on the eve of a new social as well as intellectual venture. But because I'm sometimes a bit unsparing in my assesment of my fellow man, to a degree which might be off-putting to some who might happen by here, I won't get into that just now.
Besides, if I don't allow time for that shower, my membership in this group may be embarassingly short-lived...
LPK
@Dreamwidth
5.25.2017
Liverpool, as a whole, is a fairly affluent community with a decent school system and an extensive library program. It belongs to the county library system but offers many programs and activities which other towns and villages within the same system do not. It's also the village where I came to teach many years ago when I first graduated from the state university.
When I began settling into my new home, in the western suburb where my daughter and her family live, I first looked for a writer's group somewhere nearby. And what I discovered was that all the ones that I'd known about in the past had, for various reasons, met their demise, the only evidence of their once having existed being the abandoned websites which eerily float like ghost ships on the digital waters of the internet.
I then decided that I'd try searching out a book club, something I'd never done in the past, and found that the largest and most active seemed to be a Meet-Up group which calls itself the Syracuse Book Club. However, after preparing myself for the April meeting by reading Sharon Guskin's The Forgetting Time, I decided that their choice of venue, a bar which was also located, coincidentally, in the village of Liverpool, was not really my, er, cup of tea. Or whatever one's beverage of choice might happen to be.
After searching for something associated with a church or library or bookstore closer to home, I settled on the one at the Liverpool library. They seemed to have a format that made sense for an organized reading activity and met in surroundings that suggested a focus on books rather than the bottom of a beer mug. Not to be overlooked, of course, were the improved chances of a safe drive home.
By the time I made that decision, I had only a week or so to locate and read the upcoming selection, which I did, only to discover, a couple of days later, that I'd taken a wrong turn on the library's extensive website and had actually been reading the selection from May of the previous year. Which was unfortunate because I found myself quite comfortable with the book, Willa Cather's classic My Antonia, but also because, by the time I discovered my mistake, I had only 4 days to read the current selection, Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Underground Railroad.
However, I did find it to be an easy, if uncomfortable read and so, if I can grab a quick shower after dropping my grandson off at school in the city, I'll be fully prepared for my first meeting with what they call the Thursday Morning Book Klatch.
I do feel compelled to mention that, along with the reading, I've found myself speculating as to who and what a "Thursday Morning Book Klatch" might look like. I guess it's kind of a natural thing, on the eve of a new social as well as intellectual venture. But because I'm sometimes a bit unsparing in my assesment of my fellow man, to a degree which might be off-putting to some who might happen by here, I won't get into that just now.
Besides, if I don't allow time for that shower, my membership in this group may be embarassingly short-lived...
LPK
@Dreamwidth
5.25.2017
