"Reading has taken on a new aspect: the active reader has arrived."
"Every [reading] group ... is engaged in 'adventures in reading'."
"They read carefully and sometimes critically, but always receptively, with an eye for the gain to be had..."
"[They discuss] not in order to coerce each other into a common reading of the text, but rather to enjoy the diversity, the jolt of looking through another's eyes."
The above are comments and survey findings set out in highly readable form in Jenny Hartley's most interesting Reading Groups
In case you thought that book groups were a fairly modern phenomenon, a newish idea fostered by Oprah and Richard and Judy, some of the groups studied for this book go back a long way. There is one such, still going in Cumbria, which began in 1764. Mere striplings, having been running since 1799, is another all-male group, this one based in Bristol. Then in London, with pleasing continuity, is The Decagon, which began in the 1930s and counts the sons and grandson of one of the founder members among its number. Not only that but "...the formal shape of the evening, established in the 30s is still followed. The book list for the year is fixed at an annual restaurant dinner, and the monthly meetings start with a twenty minute paper on the text. Discussion is formally inaugurated by an 'opener' who has previously read the paper."
Margaret Atwood, quoted in the book, opines "I suppose you could say that the real, hidden subject of a book group discussion is the book group members themselves", and she may well be right, they certainly inform the treatment of the material!
In the light of all the above, or just of your own experience, what do you get out of belonging to a reading group? Having our own online one, based on this site, means I know a bit about the subject but by no means all; for instance, believing them to be inherently 'a good thing' I was surprised to read this article (competitive teas?!) cited in Norm's post on the subject. But is the social side as important as the literary (not nearly as relevant with our group), is it the seeing through others' eyes, or is it that we get more out of a book when we are reading it with a view to talking about it with others who have read it than when we read alone and can afford to let it slip unchecked into our subconscious?
