Outed

I'd like to thank (?) author, local celebrity and all-around good chap Rob Wiersema for outing me last night at book club. Rob, we really appreciated your attending, and I think I speak for the rest of the mook club when I say that you're welcome to come by even when we're not discussing your book.

I've been doing this blog for about 18 months now, but I've deliberately kept it apart from my daily life. It's about the books. I read a lot, and I talk about literature a lot in class here at the university, but these are different literatures, and I wanted to find a way to talk about what I like to read. That was one reason for setting up the mook club, too: to talk about books with people who aren't expecting a grade just for listening to me.

This started out purely as a record of book purchases, but I started adding comments on books I've read because my recollection of detail becomes increasingly weak as time goes on -- I remember how I felt about a book, and what I got out of it, but I lose touch with what happens in it. (As I demonstrated last night by forgetting that James Earl Jones' fictional novelist in Field of Dreams was named in the WP Kinsella novel Shoeless Joe as actual novelist JD Salinger....) This gives me a way to keep track of my own thoughts, in other words, and it turned out that the hype was correct: even without actual readers, there's a sense of obligation to keep writing that isn't there in a private diary, failed versions of which litter the years behind me.

As I say, this began anonymously, but genies and bottles, I guess -- unless what happens at book club stays at book club?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Sorry, man. No harm intended.

Although I have to say, your horror-struck expression when I mentioned it was pretty priceless.

Thanks for having me -- I had a great time.
fiona-h said…
you sound so HOPEFUL and ENCOURAGING in that last remark. Last time I heard that phrase it was "port moody" instead of "book club" but I am NOT dishing.
richard said…
Hopeful? Me? Nah....

But what on earth happened in Port Moody? And with whom? Does your own book club meet there?
richard said…
Glad to have had you there, Rob. It was a real treat, though I was disappointed you cut yourself off after the third gin!

I hope Murray passed along our thanks, too. I wasn't at Terence's session, but I find it tough to imagine it going more smoothly than last night. If you ever want to come along again, for someone else's book (or eventually for your next one), you'll be very welcome.
fiona-h said…
My own book club careens between Anmore, Cloverdale (!), and - coincidentally - Port Moody. The "what happens..." remark had nothing to do with book club :-)

(We're reading Middlesex for the next one.)

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