As I’ve mentioned in this space, before, I am a voracious reader. It is a character trait that I inherited from my mom (if such a thing is possible – is character inherited or learned?).
I remember, as a kid, my mom suggested that I start a book journal. I started writing down the names of books I read and started a little rating system based on how much I enjoyed it. I am pretty sure I could find those book journals at my mom’s house if I really tried. In 2010, I started using Goodreads – an internet booklover’s social network site. At the time, I thought I’d just start keeping track of my books read and books-I-want-to-read on a going forward basis. In recent weeks, I’ve been trying to re-create those early book journals by marking older books that I’ve read with the year I read them.
The Goodreads tool has been helpful in making me remember which books I’ve read and enjoyed, which ones I’ve hated, and which books I bought for my Kindle and then promptly forgot about.
My newest reading endeavor is a book club of sorts. I’ve never been in a traditional book club. My close friends either aren’t big readers or we have very different tastes in reading material. This little book club – The Beer ‘n’ Books Book Club – grew out of a regular dinner date and the members’ desire to share the books they were reading. The club only has three members. It’s sort of nice because we all like to talk and the small number enables each of us to get our fill of talking.
I got to choose January’s reading selection. I did so during a conversation at a German-style bierstube while we were stuck watching women’s volleyball and drinking imported beer. Odd circumstances to be discussing books, but we were. When I found out that neither of my friends had ever read The Handmaid’s Tale, I knew that it needed to be our first book.
I read Margaret Atwood’s story of a dystopian future society when I was in high school. It was one of the required readings for our 11th grade Advanced Placement English classes. That year, we concentrated on American Literature (even though Atwood is Canadian). It was a year and a class that drastically shaped the adult I would become. I still count this book high on the list of my favorites. I think I may have read it, again, in college for another course. However, my college memories are clouded behind a fog of beer and lots of late nights, so they are not nearly as clear as those halcyon high school days.
The book is the story of Offred, a woman in her mid-30s who lives through the overthrow of the American government and it’s replacement by a militaristic leadership of religious zealots. There has been some sort of occurrence that drastically reduced human fertility. She is a woman of child-bearing age who has successfully given birth in the time before the overthrow. She is selected to be a surrogate mother for the family of one of the new Republic of Gilead’s high-ranking officials. She is to be a handmaid as Bilhah was to Rachel in the book of Genesis. Hers is an odd position – she is vilified, honored and utterly stripped of all free will.
The Handmaid’s Tale, written in 1986 but with eerily current themes, was a nominee for the Booker Prize, a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Novel and a winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize for Fiction. It earned a solid five-star rating from me and similar ratings from the two other women in the Beer ‘n’ Books Book Club.
February’s selection is Fear of Flying by Erica Jong. I’m not very far into it, but am enjoying it so far. I’ll be sure to let you know how it turns out for me.
