Joanne Kaufman’s piece in the Sunday Styles section (why the Style section and not the Book section?) of the New York Times , “Fought Over Any Good Books Lately“, gives us a glimpse into the world of book clubs and the challenges they face in keeping everyone on the same page.
Many of the issues she touches on are the same reasons why I haven’t joined one.
That is until now.
Starting in January a bunch of us are going to begin reading Roberto Bolaño’s highly acclaimed new book 2666. The posthumously published 900 page tome has made most of the Top Ten lists for best books of 2008 and is becoming more of a must read every day.
Bolaño fan Matt Bucher, creator of the all things Bolaño blog bolanobolano , has formed bolaño-l, a Google group “dedicated to discussing the writing of Roberto Bolaño” and beginning on January 12 a group read of 2666 will commence. The book is divided into 18 parts with one reader taking the lead for each part.
The leader for each section is asked to “kick off the discussion that week by giving a brief synopsis of what happens in the section and any notes you have to share—it can be anything from tracking down an obscure reference to questions about the plot.”
The publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, has offered copies of the book to all the section leaders.
In a sense this is the essence of a book social network. There are none of the bells and whistles that many of the book social network sites offer. There is only the book and its readers connecting through technology.
Currently there are 69 of us throughout the world ready to embark.
And the best part is that I have a little more than a month to read Bolaño’s other work to get in the mood.