What I Learned from Four Russians and a Syracuse Professor

Librarians love to learn. If they say they don't, then their career choice is questionable. Most times, the pendulum swing from learning too much to never learning enough can be overwhelming, but one thing is for sure - the quest never stops. Such is the case of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders and the idea for an adult book club.

The responsibility of planning and hosting a monthly adult book club at a CMRLS branch can be challenging. Book clubs take many forms, such as each member reading the same book and sharing insights, or selecting books following a certain theme or genre, or choosing books by a specific author or about famous (and infamous) people. The one common denominator is that each participant should learn something, so librarians do their best to make book clubs interesting, engaging, thought-provoking, and memorable.

As the branch manager of the Forest Public Library, I know the process well. When I started reading A Swim in a Pond in the Rain at the same time the Covid restrictions eased for resuming adult book clubs, I knew I had been given a fresh perspective. What could I learn about MYSELF in a book club? Could a book club answer the small questions, such as, what makes a reader keep reading or what makes the reading experience satisfying and what doesn't? What do the answers to those questions say about me as the reader? Could a book club answer the big questions? Consider this quote from the author in the book's introduction:

"We are going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn't specifically endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art - namely to ask the big questions: How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it? How can we feel any peace when some people have everything and others have nothing? How are we supposed to live with joy in a world that seems to want us to love other people but then roughly separates us from them in the end, no matter what?

(You know, those cheerful, Russian kinds of big questions.)

He follows that paragraph with another question: If a story drew us in, kept us reading, made us feel respected, how did it do that? That is the question we want to answer during the next six months. The first chapter is entitled "A Page at a Time," and consists of a story, discussion, and afterthoughts. During the month of June, book club participants are asked to share one page from any book they have read or are currently reading, tell the group why they selected the page, and comment on what curiosity the page creates. Using the book as an impromptu guide, the book club format will follow the accompanying reading exercise of each chapter. Sharing only one pre-selected page, "we'll take stock of where we find ourselves. What has that page done to us? What do we know, having read the page, that we didn't know before? How has our understanding of the story changed? What are we expecting to happen next? If we want to keep reading, why do we?

According to Saunders, that's the million-dollar question: What makes a reader keep reading? We can answer because we want to, but why do we want to? Each month's book club discussion will be followed with afterthoughts on the CMRLS news blog, along with an introduction to the next month's reading exercise. Registration for the Forest Public Library book club is required. Space is limited to 12 participants for each Tuesday time slot. Prepackaged snacks, canned drinks, and bottled water will be provided. 

The more we learn, the more we connect with others. One final quote from the book as we embark on this six-month learning experience:

"These days, it's easy to feel that we've fallen out of connection with one another and with the earth and with reason and with love. I mean: we have. But to read, to write, is to say that we still believe in, at least, the possibility of connection."