Book Club Terrified

by

Andi Miller

I never thought I’d say it, but book clubs can be a bit terrifying.

I’ve been a member of both online and face-to-face book discussion groups, and I’ve taken great joy in them for a number of years now. Since 2001, I’ve constantly been involved in some sort of discussion or other. I joined my first face-to-face group with no trepidation in 2004, and I hated to leave a wonderful bunch of lady book friends behind when I moved to North Carolina in recent years.

Like any addicted book groupie, I immediately began to nose around for my book club fix upon arriving on the east coast. An online forum saved me when I stumbled onto a well established and impressively attended group in a town a mere eight miles away. As luck would have it, I wouldn’t attend my first meeting for almost a year. Teaching English courses, family issues, and an already overextended schedule do not a book club member make.

Last Monday night was the night I’d been waiting for. I picked out my most becoming sweater and leather coat to fight off the drizzle, perfected my unruly curls, and gingerly parked my car as off-the-grass as humanly possible. It was a little like preparing for a date. To my great relief, all fifteen participants—easily the largest book club I’ve attended in my life—were friendly and accommodating.

I fell into easy conversation with my pack of fellow bookworms, and a glass of wine and much laughter later, it was time to attend to some new business. “This is where we always run into trouble,” one member said. Apparently, the group consistently has a problem deciding on the next book to read. I expected a group of readers to spout off titles left and right. Maybe make up a list of possibilities and vote.

Not so.

I was thrown in the ring immediately when the night’s hostess said, “Andi, you must have a huge list of books you can recommend! Tell us one.”

I never really understood the power of the old “deer in the headlights” analogy until that moment. They were new people. People I didn’t know. People whose tastes I was completely ignorant of. How could I possibly make a recommendation under such intense and unfavorable circumstances?

“What I Loved, by Siri Hustvedt!” I exclaimed.

It was a shot in the dark. A complete pulling-of-title-from-unnamed-orifice. Honestly, I expected someone else to step up to the plate. I figured they’d choose a book recommended by one of their own. Whether it was southern hospitality to let the new girl pick the book or a genuine case of recommendation block, I’ll never know. The bottom line is, a group of strangers will be reading one of my favorite books and discussing it come June 9. 

I initially encountered Siri Hustvedt’s work on a previous stint in North Carolina. In fact, I devoured her novella, The Blindfold, one afternoon in a marathon fit of reading curled up in the refuge of a Wilmington Barnes & Noble store. A bookseller friend of mine once told me that the stores don’t really care if you read a book in-store as long as you don’t bend the pages. I was very careful, and more than a little possessed of Hustvedt’s talent and dark, atmospheric appeal—although, I admit to feeling a bit guilty over my afternoon indulgence.

The Blindfold turned me on to Hustvedt in a big way, and I followed up with her magnificent novel, What I Loved. Beginning in New York City in 1975, the narrative is an expansive mixture of family drama, love story, an examination of art and psychology, and it ultimately unravels into something of a thriller. Quite simply, it’s one of the most complicated and masterfully told stories I’ve ever read. Hustvedt weaves psychology, art, folk and fairy tales, mystery and terror into her work in a seamless and breathtaking way. What I Loved is a book I’ve never hesitated to recommend.

I suppose I chose What I Loved for my first book club recommendation because it is complicated and unusual and smart and obscure. It demands attention and reflection and discussion.

So why am I so nervous about sharing it and discussing it?

Readers have widely varied motivations for ingesting the written word. Some people read for fun, some to learn, and others to be wound up in creativity. Many readers read for all of those reasons and a million more. I know why I read. I know why I consider What I Loved a favorite worth endless re-readings. In stark contrast, I don’t know my new book club friends’ motivations or their likes and dislikes. I suppose, on some level, I wonder if they’ll be offended or baffled or otherwise turned off. I wonder if they’ll even finish it. It is not a “nice” book. Nor is it quaint. It’s gritty and striking and even unpleasant at times. Things I appreciate and things that interest me but that many readers shy away from.

My unusual and heightened anxiety stems partially from the fact that I’ll be leading the discussion of What I Loved. If no one likes it, I can’t sit in the corner and shrink away, or mentally cover my ears and utter “LA LA LA LA LA” until it’s over. I hope that if my book club dislikes my pick that they might still find plenty of discussable topics between the covers. For it seems so often that those love/hate books draw out the most interesting of conversations.

I am not shy, nor am I generally self-conscious about my reading or my ability to discuss it, which is probably hard to believe given the tone of this week’s column. However, as I’ve discovered, it can be a little daunting to expose one’s literary soul, as it were, to a bunch of strangers. It could go two ways: either it makes a good discussion or it doesn’t. They don’t have to enjoy it. They don’t have to recommend it to their friends. They don’t even have to finish it. I will always enjoy it, continue to recommend it, and re-read it an indeterminate number of times in years to come.

That’s my book club mantra, and I’m sticking to it.


Andi is a recovering university academic employed by the North Carolina community college system as an English instructor. While she decided to forego a Ph.D. and career as a professor, she fills in all the free time her current position affords her with editing literary publications, reviewing, freelancing, and blogging. Her work can be found in the journal, Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), and Altar Magazine as well as online in various venues such as PopMatters.com. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), and writes fiction. Her turn-ons include new books and gelato, while her turn-offs are reality television and washing dishes. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it