Introducing The Pajiba Book Club

A few of us on the Facebook have been talking about organizing a Pajiba Book Club to go along with all this Cannonball reading you guys are doing. The thinking here is that we have a great group of people all reading their hearts out, exchanging book recommendations, writing really insightful reviews and providing quality comments, so a book club is the next logical step. If we could just get everyone reading the same book at the same time every once in a while we would be able to have a more focused and in-depth discussion.

It goes without saying that anyone and everyone is welcome to read along and participate to whatever extent you would like. If you are doing Cannonball Read 2.0 just slot the Book Club pick into your regularly scheduled reading. If you think reading 52 books a year is insane but want to participate in the book club, come join us. And if you’re a lurker with a library card I can’t think of a better way to make new Internet friends and become a part of the community than to read along with us and join the Facebook group, or just say something like “Yeah, I agree with Yossarian, btw I’m new” in the comments. The bookworms are well known for being the nicest and most civil members of the Pajiba populace, and I assure you they will fall all over themselves to welcome in a new face.

Now I’m not into making things more complicated than they need to be and the good news is that pretty much everything you could need to facilitate an online book club is already established here. We have a high-traffic central website (Pajiba) and a social networking component in the Cannonball Read Facebook group. There is an extended network of blogs and a community of blogger-participants already well established. All we need are some good books to read and a decent number of eloquent, insightful Pajibans to get on the same page, read the same book, and take part in the discussion.

So here is how it works: Each month we pick a book. If you want to participate you read the book. If you want to share your thoughts you can blog about it or weigh in on the discussion forums at the Cannonball Read Facebook group. If you are participating in Cannonball Read just do a normal write-up and count it. If you aren’t in Cannonball Read you can still link your blog on the Facebook group discussion forum so people know where to find you. With lots of people all reading and writing about the same book I would expect to see some very interesting ideas and different perspectives emerge from the individual blogs, and some good discussions taking place in their respective comments. On February 25th, there will be a comprehensive review posted on Pajiba and then everyone can get involved in the comments section. I’ll even buy pizza and sodas.

Our first selection for February is going to be Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita is unquestionably one of the greatest English language novels of the 20th century and there should be tons to talk about afterward: the unreliable (and reprehensible) narrator and the sexualization of an adolescent girl, sure, but there is humor as well as tragedy, clever and inventive wordplay, allusions to Poe and others, and writing so lyrical it practically sings on the page. If you haven’t read it before you really don’t know what you are missing. This is a remarkable book.

If you have read it before, read it again. As Nabokov himself says: “One cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation.”

And don’t be too put off by the fact that we are starting with a 50-year-old book from some dead Russian guy. In future months I would hope we can mix in more contemporary novels, good popular fiction, and quality genre stuff as well. This shouldn’t feel like a high school reading assignment. The only real requirement is that it appeals to a large number of Pajiba readers and has enough substance to sustain serious discussion (being popular enough to be stocked by most libraries is a plus, too).

Suggestions for our next book are welcome. Consensus (or at least a modest plurality) would be even better. The sooner we can establish the March Book of the Month the sooner potential readers can make the necessary arrangements.