Bookishly Different

I went to a new book club last night. Well, the club itself isn't new, I'm the newbie - which means I was playing "what's your name again?" all night. But that aside, I had a good time. Most of them are avid readers, which totally rocks. We also spent a solid two hours talking about the book, and not much else. The conversation didn't devolve into other topics until folks started leaving, which was a bit unusual from my book club experience. We also only killed one bottle of wine and a 6 pack of beer among 8 of us - whaaa? That is definitely unusual from my previous groups!

I knew exactly one person there, the hostess, whom I've only met a few times but is absolutely lovely (this is the perfect word for her, trust me). And she's a redhead, so yay for that too! But that aside, I have no idea what most of the other seven women there do for a living, whether they work, what their backgrounds are, etc. I gathered that most of them have kids, which of course is familiar ground for me, and caught a few slices of life here and there, but for the most part, we talked about the book (State of Wonder if you are curious).

What was most entertaining to me about the evening, though, was that my viewpoint seemed quite a bit different from most of the others. There were other professional types there, though, so it wasn't a job thing. And there were folks that had lived in big cities (or at least, bigger cities). So it wasn't that. I just felt the most... I dunno, "nontraditional" in thought.

Granted, this is after exactly 2 hours of conversation, during which not everyone spoke a lot, and I absolutely know I'm making a generalization here. But I think I was the only one who wasn't crazy about the book (it was good, it just wasn't that good), and I had some very different opinions on some of the events. One of the things I've always enjoyed about book discussions is hearing how other peoples' opinions and interpretations are so different from mine. Now I'm wondering if I'm gonna be "that" one - the one who usually has the differing opinion.

On the plus side, I've been invited back, so at least I'll get a chance to find out!