The Dog-Eared Pages Are Not So Utterly Illuminating

My friend Holly recently started a book club called the Dog-Eared Pages. Our first meeting was on Wednesday night, and The Last Lecture was the first book we read. I would recommend it to anyone.

But my opinion of The Last Lecture is not the purpose of this blog. Although, that would be a very good blog if everyone hadn't already done it.

The thing that surprised me most about the Dog-Eared Pages is that almost everyone finished the book. I've heard things about book clubs, and one common cliche is that people join book clubs, and then never read the books.

Granted, The Last Lecture is a very short book, so it was easy. I'll be interested to see what happens next month, when we discuss Les Miserables. Abridged of course.

I think I get most of my misconceptions about book clubs from The Vinyl Cafe, this radio show on CBC that I really like. If you haven't ever listened to it, you should. The Vinyl Cafe tells stories of a fictional family of four; Dave, Morley, Stephanie, and Sam. One story tells of when Morley (the mom) joins a book club. She works hard and stresses about finishing the book on time, and then gets to the meeting and realizes that no one's read the book. But, everyone else tries to pretend that they have read it and are in fact very intellectual, saying things like, "This book was utterly illuminating." 

What utterly illuminating is supposed to mean, I have no idea, but I'm glad that for now, the Dog-Eared Pages do not have to pretend that they know what they're talking about.