STBC Blog

Shared Thoughts is more than a book club. It’s a gathering of souls who meet monthly to discuss books. We come together in a person’s home, restaurant, or even a place of business. We have gone on excursions where we feast, drink libation and talk about the book of the month, how it affected us, or even if we cared about the text at all. A book is more than an object. It’s a feeling, an emotion.

Choosing a book is no small chore. We take our books seriously!

One evening, after one of our meetings, the secretary asked people in attendance, why did they choose a certain book. Here are some of the responses:

Shelly (Like a Fly on the Wall by Simone Kelly) – I chose it because it evoked a lot of thoughts for me due to the subject matter. I also thought it had a lot of interesting themes, it was whimsical enough and might make a great read to transition from winter reads into steamy summer reads.

Andrea (Children of Blood & Bones by Tomi Adeyemi) – Cover caught her attention. Name caught her. Book appeared spiritual.

Alethea (American Marriage by Tayari Jones) – Read synopsis and found it interesting. When she found out author was writing instructor at Rutgers, was proud and thought we would be able to get her for a meeting, until Oprah got involved.

Sabrina (Born a Crime by Trevor Noah) – Loves Trevor. She pre-read book and thought it was funny and educational. It explained so much about South Africa that we could learn from.

Marilyn (And Then There Was Me by Sadeqa Johnson) – She choose book because she felt book covered topics that women as a whole could relate too.

Tracey – She chooses her books based on word of mouth. Sometimes it’s just the season. Example: Summer deserves a quick read! Fall/winter deserves a dark mystery read. Or sometimes it just reading a 4-5 star rating book to see if it’s just that!

Monica (The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead) – Thought we would like it and learn from it. Culturally rich. Especially recommended it, since we were planning a trip to the African American Museum in Washington, DC.

Tami (Rabbit by Patricia Williams) – Usually reads books first before recommending them and found this book sad and funny at the same time. Pulled at her emotions in certain spots, and felt book had so many topics to discuss, such as abuse, love, poverty, rising from the ashes and making something out of yourself.

Every book club has their own way of selecting books. For instance, some clubs have their members select books at the beginning of the year for the upcoming months. Another club has their members put the names of books in a bag and they withdraw them & read the selection for when they meet again. Shared Thoughts protocol is that the person hosting upcoming month come to meeting and let us know which book we will be reading for next month. Yet some ladies are not ready to tell us what book they want us to read, because in their hunt for the perfect novel or memoir, they ran across so many books that they find it hard to narrow it down to just one! Book lovers are a crazy, loving bunch. So, the next time, you read this blog, and you all see a book selected, please know that a lot of thought, love and preparation went into that person’s choice.

Submitted by Tami Cleckley