Another New Year’s Eve, another family book club!! As I’ve written before, each Thanksgiving my family chooses a book to discuss on New Year’s Eve, which we have now spent together for over thirty years. We actually spend the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s together — somewhere tropical — and this wonderful tradition is still going strong even after thirty years. Our number is now up to 28, yet my cousins, aunt and uncles, and wonderful 89 year-old grandmother still find a way to make family a priority and come together each year during this time. Since most of my family lives in Michigan and I live in Minnesota, I am so grateful for these days to reconnect, and I have to send out another big “Thank You!” to my grandma for keeping this family traditional alive.
So, back to the book club! I have written about the past few year’s discussions; this year, we originally decided to read SuperFreakonomics, but upon further reflection (i.e… do I really want to discuss prostitution, sex changes, and drunkeness with my grandma?), decided that Outliers would be a better choice. While I enjoyed SuperFreakonomics, it was not as strong as Freakonomics – plus, Outliers has been on the NYT bestselling list all year, is my all-time best-selling set of Book Club Discussion Questions, and may have sparked the best discussion yet with one of my book clubs.
So, for all of those reasons, Outliers seemed like a safe choice… Boy was I wrong! First, I have to remember that I am in the unique perspective of reading an average of two books per week. I will read anything — knowing it will only be a blip on my reading horizon. However, many of my family members have very young children, so a sociological study on success was just not that appealing to many — comments like “read like a textbook” and “he belabored his point” were common. Secondly, some family members were afraid it would seem too “humanisitic” and shied away entirely. Since sociology is indeed the science of humans, I really couldn’t argue with this perspective, but was sorry this precluded trying Outliers, especially since it actually focuses on how little control we have over our own individual success!
I actually loved Outliers the second-time-around — but I am drawn to different perspectives and points of view and admire Gladwell’s insatiable curiosity. On the other hand, I completely understand how precious time is when not your own (infants can be so self-centered! 
) and have decided to search for a crowd-pleasing choice for next year.
So, I asked everyone what they had most enjoyed from our past discussions and Three Cups of Tea and Devil in the White City came up. We decided that, as a reading community, we are drawn to “narrative nonfiction” — nonfiction that reads like fiction. And, who is the master of this genre right now? Dave Eggers! So, my preliminary pick for next New Year’s Eve is his latest (Zeitoun). However, I would love to hear any other suggestions, too. Our other idea was to choose a work that was made into a movie (to help out those who may not have time to read a full work, but could squeak in 2 hours to watch a movie). Unfortunately, the upcoming books-into-movies list is long on Nicholas Sparks and fantasy (Narnia, Harry Potter, etc…). So, I think we will focus on narrative nonfiction instead.
Any good ideas?
