E35: 7 Domains of Book Club

Well, we are going to start to talk about an activity that can improve your health in all of the seven domains, and it doesn't require diet or exercise or meditation or gratitude or cognitive behavioral therapy or some of the other topics we've covered in the "7 Domains." Millions of women do this, and it might include wine and cheese. So would you do it? I'm talking about a book club.

About 10 years ago, it seemed to me that every woman in the United States had joined a book club and was reading the same book. Although this book was not chosen by my own book club, in the airport, on the plane, in my exam rooms, women were reading the same book. Nurses on a break, administrative assistants at lunchtime pulled out the same book.

Well, maybe your book club didn't choose "50 Shades of Grey," but getting together to discuss important books and topics is an activity embraced by at least 5 million Americans, 80% of them women.

The history of gathering for discussion of literary topics is very old. There have been literary societies and reading communities. In the Middle Ages, not everyone was literate and most people didn't have books, but people would gather to hear one person, who could read, read, and then they would discuss it.

If Europeans had a book after the invention of the printing press, it was often a Bible, and men would gather for Bible studies.

Now, pilgrim women on a ship headed from Massachusetts Bay. The religious woman who was kind of a renegade in her own community organized female discussion groups to examine sermons given at weekly services. Although this was generally condemned, women subsequently got together to talk about serious texts.

And some groups had women members, like this group did, but it wasn't really until the 1800s that women started forming literary societies in any numbers. And it was really after the Civil War that the movement took hold.

It was mostly middle-class women, although in terms of Bible study, it was often poor women who got together to read the Bible.

There were also literary societies, African-Americans, and reading circles included racial and class lines, but people in their own classes and groups made their own book groups.

The Physical Domain of Book Club

So we're going to talk about book clubs in the "7 Domains," and we'll start with physical health.

Now, not all book clubs in-person start out as friends, as you may be meeting new people. However, an environment where there's acceptance of new ideas, a little wine and goodies, or not wine, but still goodies, the presence of others who become friends is all part of the importance of social gatherings to our physical health.

Reading sharpens our mind. Reading with a purpose does it even more so to keep our brains going. Word input is one skill that needs to be practiced as you age. Word output, meaning talking at book club or verbal expression, what I'm doing right now, also needs to be practiced to keep the brain working and to decrease the effects of cognitive decline.

And all this business of getting together lowers your blood pressure and stress hormones and also improves memory, as does just having to prepare your thoughts to present at book club.

Decreasing stress improves your immune system, decreases the instance of cancer and heart disease.

Some people are quiet and generally not very verbal in a book club, but many book clubs encourage everyone to participate. So as we've talked before about social gatherings with people who are accepting, these things are good for our health.

We are social creatures, and we'll get to the social domain in a bit. But in terms of our health, going to a book club makes me happy and it makes generally people get together and have a good time.

The Emotional Domain of Book Club

In the emotional domain, reading can get you off the treadmill of work and family responsibilities and the never-ending drama of the news cycle. So reading in general can shut off the outside world, unless you're reading about political drama or climate catastrophe, which brings the outside world in.

But most of us who read for pleasure, even if it's history or something social and fiction, nonfiction, it really gets us off the treadmill of what's going on around us. And that's good for us.

People often read before they go to bed, and if they're not reading on an e-reader, which shines blue light in their eyes, it helps them actually prepare for sleep.

So getting together to talk about books, having your thoughts expressed, and courteously listening to others can lower your emotional stress.

And in some overall reviews of book club members, some 5,000 book club members were questioned about the importance of book club to them, they said that respectfully listening to other people's views was incredibly important to them. And having everyone participate and listen respectfully is important.

All these things can significantly improve your emotional health, because maybe your teens don't listen to you and your husband turns you off. But when you go to book club, people listen to what you have to say and are generally accepting of your point of view, even if they don't agree.

So emotional health is something that's enhanced by both reading and then by being able to express your thoughts about what you've read.

The Social Domain of Book Club

Now, social health is all about really what we talked about in emotional health. Every book club has its own culture. What types of books are chosen? There are romance book clubs and mystery book clubs and history book clubs.

The unwritten rules of book clubs, or the culture, can vary. How much time do you spend on talking about the book? Do you eat before or after? How much listening? Do you interrupt each other?

In general, in this survey of people who go to book clubs, not interrupting, letting people say their bit, becomes important in the culture.

Of course, some book clubs just meet to drink and chat and gossip, but it turns out that having a serious discussion about the book, even if it's not a very serious book, increases satisfaction. And people are much more likely to stay with the book club if they actually talk about and discuss the book somewhat seriously.

So, of course, there are book clubs that are all about eating and drinking. But people who like book clubs tend to stick with ones where the culture is one about discussion.

Now, there's a culture of listening and accepting the opinions of others as mentioned, and having a space where opinions are tolerated as mentioned, but generally not talking over each other, interrupting. And that's difficult for some of us because some of us are really verbal and some of us have a lot of opinions. But when it comes to book club, you usually let people have their say.

Now, I'm going to bring in my producer, Chloé. I am a boomer, as we've discussed many times, and my book club has boomers in it. But it turns out, aside from the in-person book club that hasn't really changed for the last 2,000 years, there are new media sources for book clubs that maybe even started with the Oprah Book Club.

So Chloé belongs to a different generation, and she might not find that the in-person book club with eating and drinking and discussing something important might fit her world.

 

Dr. Jones: So, Chloé, are you there?

Chloé: I'm always here, Kirtly.

Dr. Jones: Oh, good. Yes, you are. You're the one who pushes the dials and the buttons to make me sound good. Well, tell me what you think you know about book clubs. Do you know anybody who belongs to a book club?

Chloé: You know what? I don't. But I remember my very first impression of a book club was actually through a Korean drama series, and that's such a weird place to be introduced to book club because you're like, "Why aren't you reading a book?" And then that's the way you get introduced to a book club.

But the series called "When The Weather Is Fine" is not actually about the books per se, but it's about the people and how they react to the books. And the community in that series was a bookstore. So the bookstore owner was the one kind of hosting and putting this community together, because people come into his store so naturally they would already be interested in books.

And so his whole premise is he wanted to form kind of this community of people that are essentially reading the same things, experiencing different thoughts, reading the same book. And he just kind of wanted to bring them together.

I found it really interesting that they sat in a circle, and, kind of like how you described, they chitchatted about the book, about their life. They had snacks, and it was people of all ages. It was a whole community, and I thought that was really special. So that was, oddly enough, my first introduction to book clubs.

Dr. Jones: The sitting in the circle of our in-person book clubs is pretty much what you do. If you go to someone's house, they kind of try to create a little bit of a circle. So the circle idea . . . And there is no one leader. One person may be chosen to be the primary discussant to review the book, but everybody else, you go around and put your own opinions.

But it turns out that libraries have book clubs and they invite men, women, people of all ages. So I think the opportunity for a community to have a book club . . .

There was a book that was published by an organization for which I'm on their board, which was a community book club. And they went from library to library. Every library in this county read the same book. And then the author went from library to library to discuss the book that he'd written, and they talked with him about what they thought about his book. That happens here in Salt Lake and it happens nationally, a national book club.

Chloé: That's kind of heartfelt, the idea of a book club being formed around communities.

Dr. Jones: Well, it is, but the idea of this particular book club owner, and many book clubs, is you're taking a book with words, which the author may or may not have intended them to be interpreted a certain way, and you're filtering it through the brain of 10,000 or 12,000 or 20,000 people. And when it gets filtered through the brain, the interpretation is different.

Chloé: It is.

Dr. Jones: And people often are willing to share parts of their life that help them frame what they read.

So I have learned about people in my book clubs over the years. I've learned about where they stand about issues by the way they've looked at the book that they read.

And because it's always in a respectful environment . . . I mean, at least at our book club and every book club I've ever belonged to . . . you get a chance to know people and people are often willing to share things that they wouldn't if you were playing bridge or if you just had some strangers over for a picnic.

You don't always talk about your life in such detail, but your life creates the net or the filter through which these words come through and they come back out in the way you discuss it.

Chloé: That's beautiful.

Dr. Jones: And it's a very intimate way of sharing who you are, really, I think. I'd like to see all of us . . .

Chloé: In a book club?

Dr. Jones: . . . mix it up. Here in Salt Lake, we could have some West Side/East Side people or some Uptown/Downtown people. And it really helps to have people come in from a very different perspective and listen thoughtfully to the way they think about it.

So I am someone who firmly believes in seeing people in-person. As a clinician, I saw people in-person, and I know many clinicians now are working with people virtually, meaning they're seeing them on a screen, but I want to smell them, I want to look at their face, I want to feel their aura. And I want that when I'm hearing what they're saying about book club. Of course, I want the goodies. I want a little wine and yummies.

But during the COVID pandemic, it just wasn't really safe for people to get together. And so many people went to Zoom. And many people who are younger who are fond of social media went to something like TikTok. So there's a TikTok book club and something like 65 million, billion . . . How many people did I say had been looking at this TikTok book club?

Chloé: So many.

Dr. Jones: So many. A jillion is a pretty big number.

Chloé: I wouldn't be surprised, though.

Dr. Jones: You wouldn't be surprised? So tell me about that, Chloé.

Chloé: I don't know anything about TikTok, Kirtly. I am too old for TikTok.

Dr. Jones: Oh, God.

Chloé: But you know what? It makes sense. Even though I personally am not on TikTok, I can understand why it's being formed there. It's formed in a lot of other social media places.

So I wouldn't say I belong to this book club, but I pay attention to it purely because the aesthetics of it looks beautiful on Instagram. But it's called the Curl Up Book Club. And it's a book club that's on Instagram rather than TikTok. Same kind of premise where it's this community that you don't really see each other. My personal experience is my camera is always off when I do Zooms and is just . . .

Dr. Jones: Mine is always on.

Chloé: I don't even know. It might just be me. It might be the generation. But for me, at least me personally, I like to be part of a community while not actually being physically there.

And I think social media, like Instagram, like TikTok, gives the option for that, for them to be a part of this group of people that kind of share the same interests, but they don't have to be there. They don't have to physically be there and interact with people that maybe they don't want to. But again, they're still interacting and they're still connecting on this piece of medium, this book.

Dr. Jones: So when you're involved with 65 billion people or something like that, that's a number so big I can't even get my head around, how do you maintain that sense of what has always held us together as families, communities, states, nations? How do we hold together?

I think that the other thing about discussing books is that some people think book clubs only look at contemporary books. But we actually go back and read books that were written 100 years ago and it helps to find the same thing going on 100 years ago, the same kinds of concerns, the same political issues, the same women's issues. They were slightly different, but the tone feels the same. And that's very reassuring to me.

The Intellectual Domain of Book Club

Well, I'm going to bump onto intellectual health because intellectual health is often why many people join a book club, is to stimulate their ideas and read something new.

In medicine, there's a time-honored tradition called journal club, especially in academic medicine, scientific articles from journals, not whole books. But sometimes books are chosen for their insight into new scientific findings or research that can change clinical practice. And doctors get together to discuss the articles in depth, the science, the statistics, and the conclusions. And then the group discusses this, often over adult beverages and food. So eating together helps us stay together. But not always.

There are many types of book clubs to meet different intellectual needs of the group.

The following are some quotes from the Wordsworth Book Club, which is my own wonderful group of over 30 years' duration.

 

Dr. Jones: I'm doing a "7 Domains of Book Clubs."

Member 1: That's such a good idea.

Member 2: Fantastic.

Dr. Jones: How many book clubs do you belong to?

Member 2: Only one.

Member 1: Three.

Dr. Jones: Three?

Member 1: And then there's a fourth occasionally.

Dr. Jones: Oh, yeah? And how long have you been coming to this book club?

Member 1: I've been in this book club for over 30 years.

Dr. Jones: Right. Do you always read the book?

Member 1: Almost always read the book. Almost always. And I'm always challenged because some books are books I'd never pick up by myself. Never, never, never. I would never pick it up. And then I go, "Okay, I'm learning something new."

Dr. Jones: Do you always read the book?

Member 2: Ninety-eight percent of the time. And occasionally if I'm going to be out of town and it's not a book I'm particularly . . . Otherwise I read them. And like Kathleen said, I read books that I never would've picked up on my own and I'm so glad I've read. So I love the opportunity to be challenged and being exposed to books I would not have otherwise been exposed to.

Member 1: Exactly. And I love talking about books. You can read a book, but talking about the book, that's half the fun.

Dr. Jones: Exactly.

Member 2: I second that.

Member 3: So joining a book club is one of the best things for readers because other people select books that you would never pick up and then you read them and you discover a whole new genre or a whole new author.

Dr. Jones: Absolutely. And how long have you belonged to this book club?

Member 3: I have belonged for like 25 or 30 years. Yeah, since 1989 or something.

Dr. Jones: I know it's even been longer than that. So do you always read the book?

Member 3: No.

Dr. Jones: No? Do you show up if you haven't read the book?

Member 3: I do because the discussion is always great. There may be some books that I don't finish. I always start them and mainly I finish them. But sometimes you're like, "This is not my cup of tea," but the discussion always is interesting.

The Financial Domain of Book Club

Dr. Jones: Well, going on to financial health, book clubs can be no cost. Libraries share hard copies and ebooks, and members of book clubs can circulate a book that one owns. And that was certainly the tradition going way back when people didn't have a lot of books, or maybe a lending library had only one book.

But many libraries now have multiple copies of a book and many libraries have their own book clubs, which welcome people of all ages and whatever gender preference they choose to be. They're very welcoming, as libraries and librarians tend to be. And they're a great opportunity to see different people outside of your own book club group and how other people might share or not share your opinions.

Now, we said that it doesn't have to be expensive, but it can be. If you're a person who wants to have that book that your book club is reading or all the other books that were suggested but weren't chosen by your book club, then you have to have those books.

First of all, it can cost a lot of money. And then if you're a hoarder, you may not have any more room in your house. You've got piles everywhere.

There are people like your dear hostess here, that's me, who have a problem with books. And it's not an addiction. It's not really an addiction. But I have books delivered to my home on a regular basis and I can't walk into a bookstore without having the book in my hand.

And of course, when you're really thinking about it, you need to have the book either in your hand, so it can be quite expensive. I have probably a several-thousand-dollar-a-year book habit. It's much more expensive than my coffee habit.

But what I do is recirculate my books. So if I buy a ton of books, then once a year I go through the thousands of books in my library. I have a room in my house that's actually called a library, and I go and pick out about 500 books and I give them back to the library. I give them to the library and they can sell them and make a little money.

I think that's where an advantage might be with a virtual club where you might share . . . Some of the electronic books are in the public domain, so books that have been published 100 years ago. You might be able to get those for free.

So for those of you who have a little bit of a book problem, like I have, we can work on it. We'll set up our own support group and try to just buy fewer books maybe.

The Environmental Domain of Book Club

So in the environmental domain, what's the best environment for a book club? And Chloé and I have talked about this. The first book clubs were in-person going back to ancient Athens, but during the pandemic, many book clubs became virtual. This allows people from all over the world to join a book club with multiple points of view, which I think is really exciting. You get to see them, hear their points of view, and they don't have to live in your neighborhood or even in your town.

In-person has the health benefits of being social, laughing together, looking at each other's faces, but Zoom has gotten around. You can really Zoom people's faces. Carefully considering other opinions is important, and Zoom book clubs can get close to that in-person thing.

Do virtual book clubs on social media when you can't see someone do the same? Is it the same environment? It's not the same, but it may be more inclusive, as Chloé said, for people who wouldn't want to be there in person. So you may be allowed to hear other ideas than your own, have a richness in the experience of reading the book from other people without having to necessarily get out there and get in your car and travel somewhere when that's not really what you want to do. So having different kinds of environments is really important.

The Spiritual Domain of Book Club

Lastly, I want to talk about spiritual health. Many of the original book clubs were Bible study gatherings and focusing on an individual or a group's religious lives and practice. But for those of us not in Bible study, the ability to read something new that is amazing, that links us to something larger than ourselves, is part of our need to read.

So there are clearly people who are readers and there are people who are not. But for those of us who are readers, it takes us out of our world, puts us into another world, and helps us see something bigger than ourselves. And sharing that spiritual experience in the written word or a subject that's new to us can enhance our spiritual life.

I think that certainly most of the members of my book club and many book clubs find that that kind of coming together over a new idea has a spiritual overtone of being something that graces us with making us maybe a little smaller in a world that becomes so much bigger.

As we're wrapping up, for those of you who might need a recommendation, of the probably 400 books that I read last year, here were my 3 favorites.

1. "The Book of Eels" by Patrik Svensson. And this is a book about the biology of eels and the history of what we didn't know. The life and story of eels is beautiful, weird, and a reminder of the incredible variety of life on this planet. It blew my socks off. So if you want something about something you didn't ever know about . . . I didn't know anything about this and it was a spiritual experience to read this book.
2. "My Year of Meats" by Ruth Ozeki. Now, this is a novel about a vegetarian videographer who needs work, and she gets a job for a meat marketing company to make videos about American women and their recipes for cooking meat. And they're going to market to Japanese women so they'll buy more American beef. Now, if you're a vegetarian, you'll laugh. If you're a meatatarian, it might turn you off. If you're on the fence, you might fall off the fence about how much meat you're going to eat. It was funny, it was sad, it was beautiful. So, "My Year of Meats."
3. And lastly, I'm always the person who has to suggest local or regional literature because that's my thing. "Let the Wild Grasses Grow" by Kase Johnstun, who is a local author here in Utah. It's a lovely story set in Southern Colorado about a Mexican family of farmers who've lived and farmed the land for generations, but are still considered outsiders. And it's a very lyrical story of a family and love and what it means to be the other in your very own community.

So these are three books, one nonfiction, and two fiction. And now I'm really listening. I'm really waiting for the men's group to tell me what were the best books they read last year. I'm looking forward to a men's book club, and I just want to be the fly on the wall.

Well, we're grateful that you listened and hope that you might think about joining a book club. And if your book club reads "50 Shades of Grey," good for you. Whatever your book clubs decide. Some book clubs decide month to month. Most book clubs decide at least four months in advance so that you can finally get the book and you have something to look forward to.

So I'm hoping that for our listeners, if you don't belong to a book club, you might consider it.

And I'll finish with the "7 Domains of Book Club" haiku.

 

Book club this Wednesday
50 pages to read
I peeked at the end