Crushing lime leaves and 10 years of book clubbing..

The woman walked into the meeting with a bunch of limes in her hand "I hope yall aint start talk about de book". "Please help yourself to the limes' and the people there start crushing the leaves because the leaves give off a nice scent. It might have looked like a ritual.

At some point we start talking about the book , and then we move off to talk about other things and then come back to the book, and then go off to talk about future books and past books.

I started book clubbing in 2005 - first meeting was in the Botanical Gardens and then the first book I read was Kafka's Metamorphosis - I remember reading, as I have done since, the night before the book club like when I used to read for literature exams.

The meetings are once a month. Some months 2 persons, some 7,8 - visitors, authors sometimes.  Some people do not like the strident arguments - the politics can be strong and so. One or two times, some serious book people so we do get some constructive critiques and so.


How does it work? Books are nominated at the beginning of the year and we then circulate - nowadays we get PDF or if there is a paper copy, that goes around. We meet monthly and discuss the book and then anything else.  Now and then we might be critical, rarely though and sometimes we might use one of the published reading group guides.

I not sure if I will die next year, but I know I will be reading Island Beneath the Sea (Isabel Allende) because it is on the list.


There have been golden apples, cake, fudge, sour sop , guavas, mangoes because some of the readers have fruit trees and also like to experiment with cooking.

I go to the meetings even if I do not read the books just for the gaff and to keep the 'book club' from dying.. a call which is made now and then but has not come to pass as yet. We used to do two books a month, but people got busy and so we are down to one book a month.

 I have read things which I would not have read . I also started a few things and could not get past the first few pages but still go to the meeting to find out 'why people like the book'. 

There are times when talk about other books which were not on the list and there have been 'sub-book clubs' where a couple of people would read and talk about other books.

"We have to get a Guyanese book" is usually one of the mandates for the year, and  then other genres "Latin American', 'Black writer', Coolie writer, LGBT, Young , Sci Fi , Comedy, Classic,and then one or two serious things. We get into 'we should do poetry' sometimes but so far so good, we have not really done any though I think next year we will.

Reading with peers is a good thing for those who need a nudge.