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The way book clubs pick winners versus meaningful reads has totally flipped since I started
People keep saying a book has to be "enjoyable" to be worth discussing, but the best debates I've had in my club over 12 years came from books nobody actually liked reading, like that 800-page Russian novel we all hated but argued about for three straight meetings.
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shane7511mo ago
Did you find the Russian novel actually changed how your group talks about other books?
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max_ramirez481mo ago
Absolutely it did, and not always in a good way. Now every time someone cracks open a 300 page book, a couple of us are like "where's the 17 page footnote about 19th century farming practices?" It's kind of ruined casual beach reads for me. I'll find myself in the middle of a thriller and think "this character's moral conflict is way too simple, Dostoevsky would have dragged this out for three chapters." My friends just roll their eyes and tell me to shut up and finish my margarita.
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