This is just a short post to recommend to all of you the benefits of being in a reading group. I guess you could also call that a "book club". I'm not sure there's really a difference.
There were four of us, now three, who began eight years ago to meet every other week to read and discuss a book, from which we would read and discuss a few chapters at a time.
Our pattern, along with the authors we chose, was loosely based upon the Oxford Inklings -- C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and their friends. That was the circle of literature we were interested in.
To date we have read over thirty books, including works by Lewis, Chesterton, MacDonald, T. S. Eliot, and Boethius. Modern works included books by Alan Jacobs, Peter Kreeft, Thomas Howard, Harry Blamires, and Michael Ward. We also sampled poetry W. B. Yeats and Robert Frost.
The benefit of a reading group is accountability, or at least some level of friendly accountability. To be sure, we all had a high level of interest in this circle of literature, so we were motivated to begin with. But it helped to know that we were meeting to discuss a few chapters each meeting. That kept our momentum up.
We met at a local brewery -- in keeping with the original Inklings' venue (The Eagle and Child) -- which kept things casual and conversational.
All in all, we have been pleased with the ground we have covered, book-wise. And the friendship has been fantastic.
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Photo above is my "currently reading" pile.
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