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THE BINDING OF BOOKS
A friend emailed me the
details of the, ’What
Makes your Book Club Special’ competition, and
my immediate reaction was, ‘Great, that will give
me something to think about on a wet, winter’s
morning in Cornwall’, and trust me, we have plenty
of those! Inspiration is sluggish with an oppressive,
gunmetal-grey sea adding to the nation’s melancholy.
And then, I thought, my Book Club is a constant
of friendship and brightness in these bleak times,
and is very special.
To be honest, I don’t think my book club was that
different from others until ‘lockdown number 1’.
Almost a year later and life, as we knew it is
taking a hiatus for the foreseeable future. What
of book club? Retreat into a depleted zone of self
isolation. Don’t bother, watch Netflix, eat chocolate
and wait until it’s all over. A book club bubble
on the beach. We stumbled while we physically and
emotionally, re-adjusted, but the need to communicate
became more relevant than ever as the months have
dragged on. We missed each other, and now, book
club is a focal point, in which we ‘see’ each other
and read more than back in the good, old days.
Here’s our back story. We’ve been established
for 21 years, as Helston-Lizard Book Club, and
we’re probably/ possibly/maybe the most southerly
book club in the UK, way, way down on the Lizard
Peninsula. We began as a separate group within
an established women’s organisation, when one of
the members, Kate, invited several of us, whose
passion for literature and sharing books was second
nature, to form a book club.
We had an idea of the recommended structure and
followed the guidelines for the best format: no
more than 8-10 people as an optimum for group discussion,
although we have a core of twelve. The take-up
was so popular that membership became almost clandestine;
so many wanted to join it would have led to noisy,
gossipy chaos, a night out being the focus and
not a book; we joked; ‘The first rule about book
club, don’t talk about book club’!
The way we choose titles may differ from some
clubs. As friends, evenings would be relaxed and
informal; the concept that better discussion happened
if meetings were held at a neutral venue didn’t
appeal, and we decided on six weekly intervals,
taking turns in each others homes. The host for
the evening chooses the next book; this has proven
an enlightening way of expanding our reading experience
and we’ve appreciated the work of authors who might
never have crossed our minds. The pattern for the
meetings was a catch-up, glass of wine, talk about
the book, cake and cuppa, and more chat.
We’ve read 170 books; yes, Kate has kept count;
ranging from erudite to idiotic, memorable to forgettable,
autobiographies from Eric Clapton to the Mitford
sisters, dystopian to utopian. Some books, so boring,
one has to question how the author swung a publishing
deal, and others so powerful and inspirational,
the style, eloquence and theme are referred to
time and time again.
While we’ve been reading, something subliminal
and surprising has emerged from those thousands
of words and pages of print. Something so strong
and unifying that extends beyond a love of books
and works of fiction, into fact. We’ve woven an
invisible thread of friendship; a mutually supporting
sisterhood, sharing fears and tears, sadness and
happiness, bereavement and the arrival of grandchildren.
We didn’t realise this until we couldn’t see and
hug one another.
And then Zoom buzzed into
my life! My son explained
the program to me, in the way sons do, but meant,
‘ You’re an idiot mum, but I’ll tell you anyway’,
he said it was user-friendly. ‘Of course it is,
dear’, said I… taking into the equation that I’m
known as the family techno-prat! I signed up, and
invited all to join. To begin with it was an odd
experience; glitchy, twitchy images, more like
breakdance freeze moves; poor, unstable connections…we
do live in the wild, west of Cornwall, not renowned
for its super fast broadband signal and connectivity
to the rest of the country. The stagecoach, and
BT, might as well stop at Jamaica Inn as far as
speedy communication goes.
Our tentative steps into the uncharted world of
video meetings was met with trepidation, giggles
and exclamations, ‘ Are you there, Linda’, ‘ We
can’t hear you’, ‘Show yourself, Les’, ‘There’s
a green thing that looks like a lolly with a red
line through it’……and, no, I hadn’t switched my
keyboard for a Ouija board, even if it may have
sounded as if we are holding a seance.
The technology has proved to
be amazingly user- friendly and we’ve familiarised
ourselves with commands, ‘join with computer video’,
‘unmute mic’, ‘gallery view’. As Zoom has got its
act together with better servers, so our virtual
book club has flourished. We ‘meet’ every two weeks;
have a gossip for one session and a second, to
discuss the chosen book. We have a comfortable
familiarity as smiling faces light up the gallery.
It’s very relaxed: gone are the days of shoe-envy;
Jenny’s sun-tanned, bunion-free feet in gorgeous,
red, strappy numbers replaced with fluffy slippers.
Angie’s in bed with her crochet and cocoa and
an iPad that slips onto the floor, giving us a
mouse eye view of under the bed…no comment! Kate
has problems with her camera light and could be
hiding in a cupboard under the stairs, others have
‘helpful’ husbands who have to check it’s all going
fine and tablets resting on cushions, propped on
a coffee table are frequently angled at boobs or
the tops of heads, and I’ve got a bouncy spaniel
who hasn’t figured out why I’m having a conversation
with the wall and it’s answering me…and as for
hair!!
Last summer, we had planned to celebrate the Twenty
Years of Helston-Lizard Book Club; a week away
at Hay on Wye Literature Festival, even Fowey Festival
of Art and Literature, for a long weekend, but,
of course, it didn’t happen. For now, we’re just
a group of ordinary women, bound in friendship
by books that allow us to escape into make-believe,
and while we may be physically distanced, and missing
Chris’s tiffin and Kate’s tray-bakes, who would
have thought a pandemic could have an upside.
To sum up; our book club is special because it’s
a safe place, normal and free from fear, and while
the pending vaccination programme has injected
a glimmer of hope into a return to normal life
- the shot in the arm we have is making each other
laugh…and that’s infectious, too!
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