LUV & HAT

LUV - Book clubs are excellent, but I think we’d all agree they suffer from a perception problem. Namely, the perception that they are held by girls who wear nothing but Cath Kidston, who discuss nothing but Jane Austen novels, whilst drinking nothing but those stupid drinks that have names like Elderflower Collins on the Diamonds and Lemongrass Bellini Twisty Pants.

I suggest a rebranding exercise. Let’s get Deloitte Consulting on their ass.

Let’s start by calling them Book Gangs. Gangs have an altogether more menacing sound (if you ignore both the Sharks and the Jets, who between them almost succeeded in killing off the menace of gangs through the medium of dance) and the Daily Mail hates them. And if you want to be cool, you need to make sure you’re on the HAT list of the Daily Mail.

In fact, let’s get a job swap going with the Knife Gangs. The gatherings of people who are fans of knives can become clubs, whilst those wanting to sit down to discuss The Life of Pi can gang the fuck up.

As a gang, their behaviour will have to change slightly. Turf will have to be established - they’re going to have to take over a corner of a local pub, looking menacingly at anyone that approaches them without brandishing a Penguin Classic in plain site. There will be a hierarchy, based on who can read the fastest, and an obligatory young upstart whose job it will be to try to publicly undermine the leader, by metaphorically stabbing in the face their argument as to why Patrick Bateman really wasn’t that bad a chap.

A book gang will also require a climactic scene, where they will fight to the death/final chapter against another rival book gang. Verbal death-punches will be thrown, over a suitably non-menacing soundtrack such as Singing In The Rain. It’s JUXTAPOSITION, yeah?

Finally, as a key gang member perishes under the unspeakable book violence, the remaining members will have to get remembrance tattoos on their faces. I suggest the little Penguin symbol (and a hope that not too many other people go the same way, for fear of looking like you have the cast of Happy Feet parading across your face).

Oh, and they should carry guns.
- Susi Weaser

HAT – Book clubs. Rigid little huddles of women, all clutching a Stieg Larsson paperback, corralled into a very particular set of protocols by someone invariably called Penny who wears hiking boots and frowningly whips out a home-laminated, Comic Sans-heavy QUIET PLEASE BOOK CLUB IN PROGRESS!!! sign every time someone at the other end of the pub even coughs. God, how dreary.

Book clubs. Where you’re set a series of books to read – “something clever” (The Fountainhead), “something important and life-affirming” (My Struggle as a Marginalised Minority in an Oppressive Regime or War Wherein I Lose More than You Could Ever Imagine Possessing but Gain a Unique yet Universally Applicable Perspective on Everything), “a classic” (Austen), “something edgy” (Amis) or “something just for fun” (Marian Keyes). You’re set these books and then you have to go home and read them. Whether you want to or not. Ugh.

Book clubs. Where you have to come back and talk about these books you’ve been forced to read, sometimes while drinking small glasses of quite bad wine. You’ll trot out a platitude. Someone called Samantha will say “it’s interesting that you say that, because” then say something utterly dull that misses the point of the entire book. Others will also say dull things, or nervously repeat the dull things they’ve just heard, until the least socially-adept member of the book club asks if any of you have read any Terry Pratchett because he’s brilliant, and then you all have to stare at your own knees until she stops talking. How unremittingly awful.

Book clubs. The inspiration for the 2002 Channel 4 comedy The Book Group, starring James Lance from Spaced and Green Wing’s Michelle Gomez, which was actually really good. How obnoxiously funny and innovative.

Book clubs. A book, and some clubs. What a travesty.

Book clubs. Which would be so much better if Penny used her multiple coats, fleeces and backpacks - and dogged tenacity - to reserve a corner of a pub where you could all meet to spend a couple of hours not bloody talking about reading, but actually reading. Any book you fancied reading.

Imagine it. No one would talk unless they were going to the bar. How wonderful that would be: two hours of your week prioritised for dedicated, peaceful, ensemble free-reading. But book clubs aren’t like that, are they? How fucking tedious.

Although I will concede that guns would improve things.
- Robyn Wilder