You may say that I'm a dreamer ... but I'm not the only one?

Week 3 - yeah right (back to that parallel universe again!)

I don't think I'm a book club person - and I'm not sure whether I'd ever want to be ... This rash assertion is totally based on trawling through the Litlovers website.

I should have known, I should have read the warnings signs. After all, in the cyberworld of the Carolingian minuscule , they spell Lit with a capital L. Yeah yeah, I know it's abbreviated, gotta be slightly hip after all, but you can't go past that capital L.

It's a massive red flag waving from your monitor, an air raid siren blasting out of the your computer speakers, hands ready to reach out and grasp you around the neck and yell "This site is for Readers (note: capital R), for people who read real books, for people who worry about the subtext in Jane Eyre (I always thought that subtext was pencil notes people had written under the lines in a book), for people that read Literature" (and who probably went to more than the first lecture of English Literature 101)

It might as well also shriek "Anyone who can name more than one Janet Evanovich book does not belong here."

I found this website didn't so much tell me what books I might want to read (possibly based on some rash rationale around what books I have enjoyed in the past) - rather what books I should be reading if I knew what was good for me - in between dropping Tarquin at Rudolf Steiner and volunteering at the Oxfam/Trade Aid shop.

I searched for various books I was remotely interested in reading that I thought might be good to discuss in a book group - and soon realised that either

a) I have very strange taste in books (probably true)
b) People that join book groups have an even stranger taste in books (see note above)
c) I should never join a book group (see above)

Want an example? Under Bridget Jones' Diary - which I defy anyone to categorise as anything other than chick-lit (despite preponderance of P&P references/plot stealing) - are the following suggested "questions/discussion points" from LitLovers

1. How does the media influence women's self-images?
2. Why do women collaborate so energetically in the process?

Arghhhhhh! What about just enjoying the story? What about the jokes? What about the sheer delirium of losing yourself in a book?

So apologies dear autonomous anonymous blog auditors ... but I couldn't really find any appropriate resources for my book group's reading of Bridget Jones Diary on the venerable LitLover website ... here's my suggested list anyway

1. Copy of book (or copy of movie DVD for those that can't be buggered reading the book) - extra points for the odd coffee stain, chocolate biscuit smudge (unless it's a library copy then double points off)
2. Various nibbles, canapes, hors d'ouerves etc (triple points off for anything with Weightwatchers branding)
3. Bottles of cheap wine from supermarket (triple points for under $10 price tag from Foodtown)
4. Many and various forms of chocolate - timtams, Reeses peanut butter cups and Cadbury Tiramisu preferred
5. Never ending supply of coffee (fair trade OK - as long as it's full-leaded)
6. At least two friends who have been dumped by boyfriend that they worked with
7. At least one friend who found boyfriend/lover/husband in bed with (former) best friend

Discussion points

1. Should Bridget have decked Daniel when she found he was cheating on her?
2. Why didn't Daniel & Mark's fight end up on Youtube?
3. Why is it that book heroines who have no job skills always end up in journalism or marketing? (and where can we get a job like that?)
4. Are there more calories in a packet of Timtams or a bottle of house red?

So maybe I'm just a book lover not a LitLover ....