One of the secondary joys of reading as far as I’m concerned is being able to talk about the book with someone. I’m lucky that I get to do that at a store level, but a few minutes on the shop floor doesn’t really allow you to get into much. I did notice that I had a lot of people coming into the store that I could happily have chatted to for much longer, so it seemed the logical next step to start a book club and invite them. That decided, I then had to figure out what exactly I was going to do.
I asked a lot of people what they thought of the idea and what they would want from a genre fiction book club. The result was an event that happens in a private room in a pub, once a month on a weeknight with no commitment and the freedom to attend based on availability or interest.
On the subject of the books, most people didn’t want the hassle of making that decision. Instead the consensus was ‘just tell me what it is and if I’m interested I’ll come’. So it’s up to me what the book is, though I do get lots of great input and suggestions from the group. We’ve tried to balance old and new books, as well as a variety of perspectives while trying to make sure that the books are easily available in multiple formats and inexpensive.
Our first meeting was March 2013, and it was a bit of a rough and ready affair, more chaotic than productive. People had a good time however and kept coming back. Over time we got somewhat of a handle on what we wanted to do as a group and how to go about it. I think what we mostly have now are evenings of interesting conversation and a few laughs in a welcoming environment.
We’ve had a lot of really interesting discussions and there are so many fascinating books we’d like to do that I’m pretty sure we won’t be stopping soon. Since we started, nearly fifty people in various combinations have come together to discus books. It’s been great fun and I’ve gotten to talk, and listen to wonderful clever people. I’m grateful to everyone who has attended the book club. You’ve made a vague idea into something worthwhile and rewarding. Every month I learn or think something new, and I have you folks to thank for it.
Here’s the books we’ve read in the order we read them.
Thanks for playing.
Stefen

Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep?
by Philip K Dick

I am Legend
by Richard Matheson

Roadside Picnic
by Arkady and Boris
Strugatsky
The Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula Le Guin

Fahrenheit 451 by
Ray Bradbury

The Wasp Factory by
Iain Banks

Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
by Jules Verne

The Rook
by Daniel O’Malley

Ancillary Justice
by Ann Leckie

A Dissection of Murder
by Felicity Young

Deathless
by Catherynne Valente

Annihilation
by Jeff VanderMeer

Random Acts of Senseless Violence
by Jack Womack

The Bees
by Laline Paull

The Giver
by Lois Lowry

Vurt
by Jeff Noon

The Time Machine
by H G Wells

Neuromancer
by William Gibson

Lagoon
by Nnedi Okorafor

Ancillary Sword
by Ann Leckie

Kindred
by Octavia E Butler

Mission of Gravity
by Hal Clement
The Martian
by Andy Weir

Day of the Tiffids
by John Wyndham

The Word for World is Forest
by Urusla LeGuin

Station Eleven
by Emily St John Mandel

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
by James Tiptree Jr

Bete
by Adam Roberts

Hard to be a God
by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky

The Fifteen Lives of Harry August
by Claire North

Ancillary Mercy
by Ann Leckie

Nova
by Samuel R Delany

Dreamsnake
by Vonda McIntyre

The Three-Body Problem
by Cixin Liu

Uprooted
by Naomi Novik

All the Birds in the Sky
by Charlie Jane Anders

The Man Who Fell to Earth
by Walter Tevis

Norstrilia
by Cordwainer Smith

Woman of The Edge of Time
by Marge Piercy

Radiance
by Catherynne Valente

Swastika Night
by Murray Constantine (Katherine Burdekin )

The Affinities
by Robert Charles Wilson

The Sudden Appearance of Hope
by Claire North

The Fifth Season
by N K Jemisin

The Stars are Legion
by Kameron Hurley

Sleeping Giants
by Sylvain Neuvel

Wolf Road
by Beth Lewis

Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson

Blindsight
by Peter Watts

Herland
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Who Fears Death
by Nnedi Okorafor

Solaris
by Stanislaw Lem

Quarantine
by Greg Egan

Too Like the Lightning
by Ada Palmer

Autonomous
by Annalee Newitz

Hannah Green and her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence
by Michael Marshall Smith

Semiosis
by Sue Burke

The Prey of Gods
Nicky Drayden

The Drowned World
by J G Ballard

Dreams Before the Start of Time
by Anne Charnock

The Thousand Year Beach
by Tobi Hirotaka

Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach
by Kelly Robson

Occupy Me
by Tricia Sullivan

The Forever War
by Joe Haldeman

The Subjugate
by Amanda Bridgeman

The City in the Middle of the Night
by Charlie Jane Anders

Fools
by Pat Cadigan

Slaughterhouse Five
by Kurt Vonnegut

Terra Nullius
by Claire G Coleman

Light
by M John Harrison

Native Tongue
by Suzette Haden Elgin

The Outside
by Ada Hoffman

The Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E Butler

Parable of the Talents
by Octavia E Butler

The Power
by Naomi Alderman

Zoo City
by Lauren Beukes

A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M Miller Jr

Children of Time
by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Red Moon
by Kim Stanley Robinson

A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M Miller Jr

The Memory Police
by Yoko Ogawa

This is How You Lose the Time War
by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin