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I thought reading the book in one sitting before our meeting was a dumb idea, then I tried it with a 320 page novel
Honestly, I always thought the people in my Denver book group who showed up saying they read the whole thing the night before were just bragging or lying. We do a thing where we split most picks into chunks over 3 or 4 weeks so nobody falls behind, and I was all for it. Last Tuesday though, our pick was a 320 page mystery and I got busy with work and never touched it until 8pm the night before the meeting. So I sat down with a pot of coffee and just read the whole thing start to finish. It was a totally different experience. I caught how the author planted these tiny clues in chapter 2 that I would have missed if I stopped and started, and when we argued about the ending I could actually back up my take instead of guessing. Now half our group wants to keep doing the weekly chunks and half wants to try this once a meeting, and we nearly cancelled the next pick over it. Has anyone here tried both ways with the same book? Which one actually made the discussion better for you?
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jamiegreen24d ago
My buddy Dave in his Portland group had the exact same fight last fall over a 400 page thing, they ended up doing a hybrid where the host picks one book a season for the full read and the rest stay chunked. He said the one-sitting books always had way better talks because everyone actually finished and nobody was faking their way through the last third. The chunked ones were comfy but half the group would show up having skimmed and the talk went nowhere. He also said the all-night read made him notice stuff like a throwaway line on page 40 that paid off at the end, which never happens when you drag it out for a month. My take is your group should just test it for two or three picks before anyone quits over it.
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