Book Club Report

          I attended the February meeting of the monthly book club that meets every first Monday at my library. It consists of mostly women and a couple of men, in their 60-70s. This club meets at our library, usually in the meeting room but on this day in the magazine area (which has comfortable seating) because they were doing taxes in the meeting room. Refreshments were served. This month there were five women and one man attending. I was the only new person. A sixth lady came when there were only 15 minutes to go. She thought it started at 12:00 not 11:00 and she was 15 minutes early!

          The book for this month was Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James. Although I had read this book and I am a HUGE Jane Austen fan I took a back seat approach, choosing to mostly observe.  Everyone knew I was a circ clerk in library school and attending as an observer. I only spoke once or twice, to help clarify some characters and their relationships when the members were wondering who the characters were and couldn't remember who was whose sister or wife. One lady did most of the talking, but there were 4 others who also talked  about equally. One lady never said anything until the end, but she listened carefully throughout. It was a very civilized meeting. There were differing opinions sometimes but everyone listened respectfully to each other and disagreed politely. Cheryl, one of our assistant librarians, is the moderator. Cheryl did an awesome job as moderator, especially considering she had never read Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen isn't really her thing. She did watch the movie (the one with Keira Knightly) and had trouble even getting through that. She did a great job, participating in the discussion some but letting others talk first.

          The questions were edited from LitLovers online book club website. Everyone had a copy of the discussion questions. Most of them had jotted down their observations and opinions while reading the book. Some of the questions assumed a knowledge of Pride and Prejudice. A few people had read that novel, but for most it had been quite a while. One lady (not the over-talky one) seemed to have particular insight into both Death Comes to Pemberley and Jane Austen's works in general, not just Pride and Prejudice. The discussion took the form of going down the list of questions (14 in all) and covering each one until it had been exhausted. A few questions were skipped because the discussion had pretty much covered them in previous questions. Some of the questions got so in-depth that Cheryl had to move things along and remind others of the time. The questions seemed to be equally divided among questions pertaining to the mystery at hand, and questions pertaining to the characters and how they were like the original characters from Pride and Prejudice. My favorite questions involved the Wickhams.

Question: Why is Lydia Wickham never questioned about what happened in the carriage between her husband and Captain Denny?

Consensus: Because she is a dingbat.

Question: What do you think the future holds for Wickham and Lydia?

This one had more varying opinions. Several of the members seemed to think that Wickham would make a huge success of life in America, that it was just his class assignment holding him back in England. They saw him being a successful horse-breeder in the South, and that Lydia would fit in wonderfully as a dingy Southern-belle.The insightful lady had opinions more along the lines of Cheryl and me ( we didn't share these with the group):

Cheryl: Once a player, always a player.

Me: He's gonna get shot by someone's husband.

          I really enjoyed the book club's discussion. This club reads a variety of fiction. Recently they have discussed The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion and Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. I would love to attend regularly if I could!