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My book club said shorter books are better for discussion and I think that's totally backwards
We finished a 180 page novella last week and the meeting lasted 25 minutes before everyone ran out of stuff to say. Compare that to when we read East of Eden back in March, which took us 3 sessions and we still had more to dig into at the end. One of our members, Karen, pulled up some stat from a reading group blog saying books under 300 pages get better attendance and more people finish them. Sure, more people finish, but finishing is not the same as having something to talk about. A short book gives you one or two big ideas and that's it, while a longer book gives you 10 small moments to argue over. I brought this up at the last meeting and got shot down pretty fast, which honestly surprised me. Is it just my group that rushes through short books, or does everyone else find longer ones give you way more to chew on?
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john_murphy24d ago
Our group read a 900 page book last year and the woman who picked it brought a two page list of questions she had saved up, which turned into three separate arguments about the dad. Maybe the fix is having someone whose job is just to dig up stuff before the meeting, since a thick book only helps if people show up ready to poke at it.
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