“Gathering a community of booklovers.” That phrase has been rattling around in my head ever since I heard it from Justin Bessler at Birch Tree Bookery. It reminded me that what I love about books is not only losing myself in them but also finding myself among others who love talking about books. This week I wrote a report summarizing reports on twenty-two book groups for a grant funder. That reinforced the idea of how powerful it can be to gather people around a good book. Books and community are a powerful mix!
Book groups help people find like-minded people. It is wonderful to know we are not alone in love for an author or in seeing the world in the way we do.
Book groups also can foster good disagreements. We may need to define “rules of engagement” about respect and curiosity. Disagreement can force me to think more deeply. It may make me stronger in conviction. Or it may change my mind.
Book groups build community. The shared experience of working through a book can transform acquaintances into friends, people we want to be with and have as part of the fabric of our lives.
Discussing books with others etches a book into our lives. Till We Have Faces is, perhaps, C.S. Lewis’s most profound book. But I just didn’t get it until a group of us struggled through it together.
Books are often a mirror by which we look at our lives. Sometimes, the comments and questions of another help hold that mirror for us.
And sometimes, a book will galvanize a community into action. It will inspire and call us into action and convince us “we can do this!” or “we need to do this!” Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said, on meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!” Hopefully, books won’t call us to war but to constructive action.
Summing up, books and community are a powerful combination. So that is why I love to host book groups, write about books and host social media devoted to discussing books online. And that is why I’d love to hear your stories of the power of books and community.