Book Club Experience

My book club experience did not quite go as planned. I was meant to attend the program as just a regular patron to gauge discussion in that frame. Only about a week before book club night, my colleague who was going to be working at the Reference Desk that evening realized that she had a schedule conflict, and I was the only one available to cover. At this point, the plan was for me to work the desk and zoom into the book club meeting happening two floors down.

…And then Monday afternoon--five hours before the start of the book club--my colleague who hosts book club called in sick, so it fell to me to somehow run book club via zoom from the upstairs desk. So, I set everything up for our book club around 6:30 while trying to make sure that everything else in the building was running smoothly because the Reference Librarian is Person-In-Charge at night. Needless to say, it was a stressful night!

As for what set up looks like, we brew a pot of coffee, provide water, and typically have snacks of some sort--this month it was cookies. I got a zoom meeting going between a staff laptop and the Reference PC. I also printed out multiple copies of the discussion questions that the actual host had prepared. 

Now onto the book club meeting itself:

We had five patrons come to this month’s meeting. There has been a steady decline in attendance which is a little concerning. A lot of our regular patrons skipped this month which seemed strange because the book was Killers of the Flower Moon. I do know that at least one patron had said last month that we’d get a lot more participation if we selected “fluffier” books. Seeing as the book is All the Light We Cannot See, I don’t know if that’s advice we’re planning on taking.

Right away the patrons dominated the conversation with the opening discussion focused on the differences between the book and the movie. As I had not watched the movie, I was content to listen to their thoughts and offer commentary when I could. They felt that without the movie, the book would not have been as popular. I found this interesting because I feel like with fiction novels and their media adaptations, the book usually already has a pretty strong fanbase and following, but it makes sense that nonfiction would need an additional incentive to ‘go viral’ so to speak. Their biggest criticism of the film was that it did not accurately capture the full scope of this story’s tragedy and the mistreatment of the Osage people. I think that’s because the narrative writing in the book does a phenomenal job of setting William Hale and Ernest Burkhart as trustworthy and honorable men, so it is that much more devastating when the case is cracked. Films pull off betrayal very well, but they lose a lot of the nuance and subtlety found in written works.

The other particularly interesting--and almost explosive--discussion was when some of the book club started debating whether or not the crimes and murders were racially motivated. One lady was adamant in arguing that it had nothing to do with race and was entirely concerned with finances and greed. Very quickly another patron disagreed, saying that even if that were true, it would have been much easier for these men to target a marginalized group like the Osage. Thankfully, everyone kept their behaviors in check and the discussion moved on. Still, it was a bit bemusing to me that someone could read about these horrific events and claim that it had nothing to do with race. 

When I eventually went back downstairs to help them wrap up, one of the patrons hung around while I cleaned up. He was disappointed a bit in the group conversation and wanted to hear more about what I thought about the book. We discussed the other tragedy of the story, overshadowed by the true crime, in regards to the calculated efforts of the United States to eradicate indigenous cultures and the loss of language. It is possible that if I had been able to sit in the room and moderate book club, that we would have made it to this conversation in the large group setting, but I am glad at least that this patron was still able to have a meaningful discussion over a topic from the book that he felt was especially important. 

Generally I think book clubs are valuable because each member brings different reading experiences to the conversation and it allows for community building, but there is also an element of frustration for some members who want to have in-depth analytical conversations and intellectual debates. I hosted our book club discussion over Slaughterhouse-Five a few months ago and had to bite my tongue every time they complained about the fact that the plot wasn’t linear and how unenjoyable the book was to read as a result. It was just a tad bit infuriating for me to listen to as someone who has written many many essays about Vonnegut. 

I can’t say I’m in a hurry to host the book club again any time soon, but I’m always willing to help out with it. I’m not sure what books are picked out for the year, but hopefully we can get attendance back up with better promotion of the program and more variety in the books selected!

Special Topics Paper

 New Adult Fiction is a developing genre in the literary and publishing worlds. St. Martin’s Press is credited with the term’s introduction when they sponsored a contest for new fiction featuring “protagonists who are slightly older than YA and can appeal to an adult audience” in November 2009.

Since then, New Adult Fiction has grown as a genre and publishing field, but is still not widely recognized by many booksellers, libraries, and other sources of literature. Consequently, without clear distinctions between Young Adult (YA), New Adult (NA), and Adult Fictions, the blending of these audiences is damaging their literary forms.

There are two obvious sources of this blending. One is the authors themselves as they experiment with their writing and attempt to reach new audiences. The other source is the marketing of these materials. Publishers are aiming their marketing campaigns towards the individuals with greater buying power--adults--which is exacerbating the issue of more adult readers consuming YA material than the original intended teenage audience.

Ultimately this blending of audience and genre is especially problematic when examining the presence of adult sexual content in a literary space designed for young adult readers. As platforms like BookTok have increased their viewership of book recommendations, content creators have noted a very clear trend concerning adult women readers entering this young adult space and desiring this mature content as opposed to reading erotica novels or other adult genres.

It is unclear as to why adults are not seeking out the literature that is intended for them, but it could be a consequence of nation-wide changes to educational core standards which saw a massive decrease in the attention paid to skills associated with the liberal arts, one of which is reading comprehension.

This essay intends to examine the rise of New Adult Fiction and the blending occurring across the field due to the actions of authors, publishers, and marketing professionals. From there it will delve into the risks and dangers of such merging and the potential causes for why this merge has and continues to occur.