Book group

Our second virtual book group with a difference - people just present a book they have read, any book, and we chat about it. Only four of us tonight but that meant we could go into more depth.

I spoke about Little Fires Everywhere and whether it deserved the relatively poor critical reviews it got, and whether it’s easier for an older white man to be seen as ‘literary’ when writing about families than it is for young female writers, especially an Asian American.

We also discussed the problem of getting book recommendations and then hating the book. Does a recommendation from someone who loved a book come with a burden to like it (or certainly not to criticise it). What do we say about ourselves and judge in others by the reading matter we/theychoose?