What the Dickens?!

Hoorah!  I finally finished reading David Copperfield.

When Charles Dickens was selected as our theme for book club I must confess I didn't know what to expect.  I knew of his works that had been converted into plays or movies (A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist) and I could name other books for which he was famous (Great Expectations, David Copperfield, etc) but that was the extent of my knowledge.  I had tried to read Great Expectations once, but didn't get past the first chapter.  

My book selection for this theme was David Copperfield - I happened to have as an ebook (blasphemy!).  And what can I say... It was a struggle? Yes.  It was rewarding? Yes. Did it take me long to read? Hell yes!  Did it make me cry? Very nearly. 

One of things Dickens seems to do best, which I believe has meant his books have lasted the test of time, is character development.  In fact sometimes, for our day and age (where information is always a touch away and in a format that can be rapidly consumed), I'd say he spent too much time (in David Copperfield).  I did find myself skipping whole paragraphs, particularly towards the end so that I could quickly find out what was going to happen.  I did find the language challenging at times and occasionally had no clue what a particular character was saying or doing.  But this did not have a significant impact on the story.  Actually, I could spend hours analysing the plot development, the character development, the literary style, the pros and cons but that has been done many times before and click this link for more info (wiki of course).

What I really wanted to say with this blog is - persevering with all these things is worth it.  The plot is so cleverly woven together it's not until the last chapters that the outcomes are revealed (Spoiler alert: I've read so many romance novels I could see that part of the ending coming a mile away).  And just like a Hollywood movie (or it should be the other way around) everyone gets their just desserts or comes out peachy.

What makes a great wine club?

So our wine (cheese chocolate and book) club, for each meeting, selects two bottles of the same wine priced between $30-$50.  Usually it's a red wine because they cellar best although we did recently purchase a sparkling white which we were advised can cellar for 3-5 years.  We did actually visit the wine cellar door in Hahndorf (Somerled)and taste the bubbles before we purchased.  We generally don't shop for a wine together - it's hard enough to find a date that we are all free to have the book club let alone go shopping!  This last purchase was pure opportunity.  We were celebrating the 1 year anniversary of the club and were in Hahndorf because that was where we had our first meeting. 

So anyway, we usually buy reds, one to drink now and one to cellar for a few years.  I came up with the price range because I got sick of gifting people with *nice* bottles of wine (in my world, that's a wine between $30-50 or more) whilst all I ever drank was the <$10 bottle of plonk.  We also support local wine cellars as much as possible - which is very easy to do when you live in the state that produces 44% of the nations wine.  

During my other travels (to wine cellar doors) I've heard tales of other wine clubs which operate differently.  I expect the more money you have the better the wine club.... or at least the wine selection.  Because again (if you read the other blog about what makes a good book club) a good club, any club, comes down to great company and common interest.  But there's always room for improvement.  So what does your wine club do?

What makes a great book club?

In the last few years I've come across a variety of different formats for a book club.  And in developing the format for our club, which is reasonably established now I think, we considered several formats (see Beginnings blog).  One idea was to follow a visible book club such as the First Tuesday Book Club or Oprah Winfrey.  My partner has a book club that meets once a fortnight, generally picks the Penguin Popular classics and must read a certain number of pages prior to each meeting of the designated book.  My mother has a club that's a bit different - a play reading group.  But what makes the club successful?  Is it the conversation, the shared common topic, the social gathering?  To my mind it's the great wine, great cheese, great chocolate and great company!  But I'd love to hear what other people do for their book club and what they like/dislike about it...

Confessions...

Ok I'm going to declare - so I've read J K Rowling and Stephenie Meyer (and if you don't know who they are, what rock have you been hiding under!).  And I did enjoy nearly every minute of it. But I've read much much worse and much much better. I know a lot of avid readers scorn both of these authors but really - you have to give either credit to them or to their marketing and PR machines for bringing books back to a whole new generation of readers in the age of digital media (and I don't mean ebooks!) and video.  

Blog Background

The purpose of this blog is really for me and fellow Club members to share thoughts, invite comments, and obtain ideas.  The Club began because one friend said to another "I want to start a book club".  The other friend said "Great - I love books, but I've always wanted to start a wine club!  And if we are going to drink wine, we'll probably need some food - cheese!".  These two friends then said to a third - "We're going to start a wine, cheese and book club.  What do you think?".  The third friend said "Great - I love books, I love cheese and I love wine.  But I really love chocolate!"  So once every couple of months the Club meets, shares a bottle of wine while eating cheese, crackers, fruit and bread, takes down wine tasting notes and how the wine compliments the cheese (or not!), discusses a book just read and the next to be read and enjoys a chocolate based dessert.  I think everyone would agree - a fabulous idea.  See blog "Beginnings.." for more info on Club dynamics.

Beginnings...

(here are some initial thoughts for forming our club)

 Write (intended!) then - so we like wine, we like cheese and we like books....

So some general event principles (for Club meetings):

-once every 2 months to coincide with partner work patterns (working or not);
-Friday, Saturday or Sunday evening
-Group must be in multiples of 3 (ie member total can be 3, 6, 9 etc because at least 3 people are needed to finish a bottle of wine and not get smashed.
-wine priced between $30-50, one in three people brings two bottles of the same wine, one we drink, the other gets stored for a few years?
-If we do above, will need to keep a record of wine tasting notes so that we can compare
-rotate the hosting and the tasks
-one person to bring cheese (something different and fancy), one person to bring wine, one person to host and/or one person to purchase books (don't know what happens with that chore if there's 6 people)
-Is the only restriction the price? Do we want to make only Australian wines, only boutique wineries, only SA wines, only reds? I'm not fussed meself.

Book selection principles:
I've made the general assumption that we would all read the same book but of course we could read different books and report on what we've read to the group... I prefer the former.

Here are some things to consider -

How do we choose a book?
How quickly should they be read? (ie one book a year? one book a month or per meeting?)
What genre? (ie non-fiction, fiction, popular, etc)
Only classics, only 100 great reads of all time, only penguin populars, only those out of copyright, only authors that are alive?

Biographies

The book, or rather the theme chosen for discussion at the next WCCB meeting is "Biography". And it had to be of someone who is dead. I chose Roald Dahl. I didn't know anything about his life other than that he had a Scandanavian background.  But as a child I laughed and loved many of his books. As a Science and IT person I tend to think of myself as logical, analytical and factual. And I expected a non-fiction book on someone's life to be the same. I found it both interesting and disconcerting that a biography may be both fiction an non-fiction. The biography of Road Dahl puts colour, atmosphere, sight and sound to events that the author had no way of experiencing other than through documents and third person accounts. So this raised the question - what makes a good biography?