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The retired librarian in Portland who changed how I vote on our book picks
Two summers ago in Portland our club was tearing itself apart over whether to keep a book that half of us hated, and a retired librarian named Ruth who only came twice said something I still think about. She asked one simple thing: what does the book do that no other book on our list does? We went around the room and could not answer it for 20 minutes, and then we picked our next three books with zero arguments because we just kept asking that. Now every time someone wants to drop a pick we run it through that same filter, and it kills most of the fights before they start. Ruth moved to Tucson that fall and we still use her line. Does your group have a rule like that, or do you just fight it out until someone gives up?
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jade2217h ago
That sounds so rough, I've been in a club that almost broke up over one stupid pick and it was awful. The fact that a quiet person who barely showed up solved it with one question is kind of amazing. I really feel for you losing Ruth to Tucson, that's the worst when the person with the good trick moves away. My group doesn't have anything that clean, we mostly just argue until people get tired or someone's Internet goes out. But I'm stealing her line for our next fight, that filter sounds like it would save us a ton of hurt feelings. It's such a simple way to get people to say what they actually love about a book instead of just yelling about what they hate.
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