Gretchen Rubin on The Happiness You Can Find in a Book Group:
One of my favorite happiness-project resolutions is to “Join or start a group.” I can’t begin to measure the happiness I’ve received from my neighborhood book group, which has met for more than a decade, as well as from my three children’s literature reading groups—yes, I’m in four book groups. I love book groups!
Why do book groups bring happiness?
A common passion is a great organizing principle for a group, and books make the ideal subject. You can choose novels, or science books, or books about wine, or mysteries. Many readers have emailed me to ask me for a discussion guide for their spiritual book club. A friend started a group for closet romance-readers. I’ve been astonished by how many adults want to discuss children’s and young-adult literature. Because everyone in the group shares that interest, it’s easy to make conversation, to feel connected—and to keep up with the reading!
But even apart from powerful pleasure of reading, if you’re trying to find more happiness, just being part of a group helps you make new friends, deepen existing friendships, and have fun—all factors that make you happier.
Now, you might say, “I don’t have time to start or join a group.” You can’t meet once a week, but how about once every six weeks? Meeting in a group is actually efficient, because you see a lot of people at once; it also means you’re creating a social network, not just one-off friendships. It’s easier to maintain relationships with people if you have several friends in common.
Also, it’s all too easy to postpone fun; even book-lovers sometimes need prodding to make time to read. Membership in a book group gives you a reason to browse in your local bookshop (what’s more fun than that?) and to take a break from the TV and the computer; even if you know that reading makes you happy, a book group guarantees that it doesn’t get crowded out of your schedule.
If you’d like to start a book group, but need a little guidance, talk to the folks at your favorite indie bookstore. They know a lot about how to organize book groups and what books have been successful picks, and will be able to point you to online resources like discussion guides and proposed lists.
Join or start a book group! Ah, it makes me happy just to think about discussing David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas or Robert O’Brien’s The Silver Crown with my beloved groups.
