Book groups are great for getting a conversation started – they are the perfect winter activity

In 2005, the novelist Rachel Cusk wrote an essay about a book group she had briefly joined. It had not been a happy experience. After a series of disappointing, often “glum”, meetings, Cusk concluded that “reading is a private matter”.

“In this atmosphere the spell was broken,” she wrote. “What remained was a cold, unyielding surface for a writer’s imaginings to fall upon: the permafrost of organised ambivalence.” This was not the only problem. Cusk had quickly become irritated with the other women’s lack of literary insight. The week they discussed Chekhov – Cusk’s final appearance at the book group – was excruciating. “After a silence someone else finally blurted out that she couldn’t get on with Chekhov – was that his name? – at all. Not at all. Sombrely everyone else owned up. It was just awful.”

I have no reason to doubt Cusk’s version of events, though in fairness to the rest of the group, it can’t have been easy sharing the dinner table and the discussion with a writer who had, two years previously, been included in Granta’s “Best of Young British Novelists”. You might understandably think twice about saying, “Well, I thought the main character actually seemed quite nice, no?”

Cusk, I think, is only partially right that “reading is a private matter”. The act of reading is, by necessity, almost always private. But debate so often brings a book to life, illuminating themes you may have missed, offering alternative perspectives on characters. It is why we read reviews and essays, attend seminars at university. We are seeking to be challenged and guided. Book groups provide a social framework for this discussion, as well as a rhythm to one’s reading habits. Where else are you likely to find this sort of stimulation once you have left university?

I joined a book group with various friends about four years ago. We decided we should read more of the “classics”, which we haven’t done at all. Instead, a different person in the group chooses the book each month. We have just read Luster by Raven Leilani; before that it was Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal; next month it will be Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen. There is very little rhyme or reason to it – and we like it like that.

It has been interesting to see how the conversations have changed over that time. At first, there was some reluctance to really open up. It felt exposing, on both a personal and intellectual level, to present a theory or an idea to the group. But this soon passed, as we realised no one was on trial or up for mockery.

These monthly meetings have nearly always enhanced my appreciation and understanding of a novel. I don’t agree with Cusk about the “permafrost of organised ambivalence”. It is rare that we all agree, or that we think a novel to be merely “fine”. In fact, the only thing we find harder to agree on is the date of the next meeting.

So as the evenings close in, what better time to start a book group or resurrect one that has fallen by the wayside? I’d love to hear how you get on and what you’re reading. Or join us reading Crossroads. Try being ambivalent about Jonathan Franzen.

Yours,

Rupert Hawksley

Voices senior commissioning editor