Book Club Experience

 

  
 I was able to attend a book club meeting at the Valparaiso branch of the Porter County Public Library. The meeting was held in Meeting Room B where they provided tea and decaf coffee. This evening book club meets every other month as they are trying to get back into the swing of things. The book for the book club was Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig. They chose this book to celebrate Disability Awareness Month. There were three people in attendance, not including myself and the two library staff moderators (both of whom I will refer to by the first letters of their names - P and K). 

    P brought a list of questions that she felt would help foster conversation. There were only four questions asked in total. After the initial question to kick things off, P only asked questions when there seemed to be a lull in the conversation. The questions were:

• What were your thoughts on the book?

• What were your favorite parts?

• Did this book challenge the way you thought?

• Was there anything that surprised you about this book?

    Once the question was asked, P would allow time for the three attendees to answer and would chime in to expand ideas or speak about her own experiences. K chimed in quite a bit to offer her feelings on the book. The conversation would often spiral out from whoever answered the question first. They spoke about ableism and the history of disability in America and rights and so much more. Much of what they spoke about was the difficulties that the disabled community has and visible versus invisible disabilities while calling on familiar and personal experiences to support their conversation. While there was one person that seemed to talk more than the other two attendees, it was not disproportionately so. P often would try to loop in the other attendees. We all made paper nameplates so that we would be able to directly address one another if we would like.

    The book club tries to rotate between fiction and nonfiction. This is the only month that both the day and evening book clubs are discussing the same book. This is due to a Valparaiso city organization reaching out and asking the library to do the same book for both book clubs to celebrate disability awareness month. The book for next month is The Sleeper Agent. P said that the library is ordering certain books that she has to pick from so she is reading the books along with the club. She sincerely hopes that the books are good and that they enjoy the next book.