Book clubs

I am thinking of joining a book club in my local pub. I've never been to one before, and although at first the idea seems perfect for me, I'm not quite so sure.

Of course getting recommendations from fellow book lovers, and discussing how great books are would be brilliant. I would also welcome the motivation to read books that otherwise I might not have even picked up.

But the dissecting, the evaluation? That sounds a bit too much like English Literature too me, and I left that behind with my GSCEs. Of course we can examine each little part of a book and consider why the author made these choices, and to what effect, and I can even acknowledge that this could give a greater type of fulfilment from a book as only then do you truly understand how great the writing is.

Then again, I have always held the suspicion that critiquing any form of media is less enjoyable than simply experiencing the media, in this case books, without any other agenda on your mind, no need to hold back from immersing yourself in the created world that lies before you in order to compare and contrast it with other books of its time, for example.

I read because I simply love reading. Not because I am interested in how authors from different times, personalities and circumstances set about creating these works of art. But maybe I'm just being too stubborn. I'm going to go along and see whether I enjoy it. The first book is To Kill a Mocking Bird (I've never read it, so that's a good start).