Book club recap: 2024

Back in March I blogged about a great way to run a book club and said I’d be starting one myself. Well, it’s been a road with ups and downs, but as I look back on 2024, I call it a success.

At the end of the day, it has kept me reading long-form books more than I would have and has introduced me to some interesting reads I wouldn’t have encountered otherwise.

The final thing I was hoping to get out of it was a social context with other men.

Our first meeting was well attended. After that, we saw a steep decline in numbers until finally, for one meeting, it was just me and my dad. Then, our numbers started to climb again, but not with the same people.

I switched the club from GroupMe to a Google group because many of the older attendees prefer email communication. Email seems to be kind of the common denominator between all age groups in the club.

This last meeting was our most well-attended ever with 7 men, including myself. That, to me, is close to the max I’d want on a regular basis. Otherwise, it just takes too long for it to be my turn to choose books again 😉

It’s been interesting to see the reason we’ve lost folks. One guy moved. Another guy is busy. Another experienced some health issues. Finally, one fellow decided he wasn’t interested in the books that were being chosen and wasn’t going to attend anymore.

There’s no one my age in the group at the moment. Many of my close friends read a lot, but they only read Brandon Sanderson novels.

It’s led me to reflect on the ideal book club member. He

• reads the book before the meeting,
• isn’t genre-inflexible,
• is interested in the sociality as well as the books, even if he won’t admit it.

Well, here’s what we read.

• Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI — David Grann
• The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains — Nicolas Carr
• Real and Right — Mike Leavitt
• Table for Two — Amor Towles
• Buffalo Flats — Martine Leavitt
• The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row — Anthony Ray Hinton
• The Devil in the White City — Erik Larson

Here’s to another year of interesting reads! 🥂