Bairbre Higgins's Blog - Posts Tagged "club"
Bairbre's Book Club - An Introduction
When a marketing person recommended I start a Blog to coincide with the launch of my first novel – The Torchbearers - he had me reaching for the dictionary… Blog - a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, presented in an informal style.
Gazing over my shoulder as I typed this out, my nine year old sighed the sigh of the utterly hopeless. ‘The word’s Vlog mum, not Blog,’ she declared before flouncing off to check the latest installment from someone called Stampylonghead. (It appears even on-line forms of the written-word are facing an uncertain future!)
Blog topics?
A current affairs online magazine? Stop yawning down the back! This idea lasted the four seconds it took for a blunt family member to inform me that my politically-charged twitter account is as boring as boiled rice – so, no. A non-runner.
A trying-to- be-helpful friend mentioned that Parenting and Healthy-Eating blogs are a thing. Ehhhhmmm. No. (Unless this is set to be a one off and the size of a small post-it.) Following more back-to- basics logic – my hope is that whatever souls happen to stray (off the web superhighway) down this tiny track, they do share one interest - a love of books. So, on the basis that the most ‘obvious’ ideas often prove the best, my regularly-updated, informally-styled, individually-written blog, will be a book club - Bairbre’s Book Club (or BBC!)
As I have never been in a book club before, my makey-uppy format is as follows: For each book recommended I will give (a) a description of who/what first brought it to my attention and (b) five reasons I think it’s worth a read.
Unfortunately, the wine and fancy crisps are virtual but what is real is my solemn promise to only suggest books that fall into at least one of three categories (1) rollickingly-great- twisty-turny- yarns-very- well-told (2) books where (in my opinion) the quality/craft of the writing is so stonkingly, masterfully, awesome, that (even if the story is a bit slow… like) it reads the way a treat symphony sounds and feels (3) superbly researched factual and/or searingly-honest ‘insider’ looks that broaden our understanding of the world/shine a light into important shadows. The first book up for mention comes under the last of these three headings: ‘Deerhunting With Jesus: dispatches from America’s Class War’.
Gazing over my shoulder as I typed this out, my nine year old sighed the sigh of the utterly hopeless. ‘The word’s Vlog mum, not Blog,’ she declared before flouncing off to check the latest installment from someone called Stampylonghead. (It appears even on-line forms of the written-word are facing an uncertain future!)
Blog topics?
A current affairs online magazine? Stop yawning down the back! This idea lasted the four seconds it took for a blunt family member to inform me that my politically-charged twitter account is as boring as boiled rice – so, no. A non-runner.
A trying-to- be-helpful friend mentioned that Parenting and Healthy-Eating blogs are a thing. Ehhhhmmm. No. (Unless this is set to be a one off and the size of a small post-it.) Following more back-to- basics logic – my hope is that whatever souls happen to stray (off the web superhighway) down this tiny track, they do share one interest - a love of books. So, on the basis that the most ‘obvious’ ideas often prove the best, my regularly-updated, informally-styled, individually-written blog, will be a book club - Bairbre’s Book Club (or BBC!)
As I have never been in a book club before, my makey-uppy format is as follows: For each book recommended I will give (a) a description of who/what first brought it to my attention and (b) five reasons I think it’s worth a read.
Unfortunately, the wine and fancy crisps are virtual but what is real is my solemn promise to only suggest books that fall into at least one of three categories (1) rollickingly-great- twisty-turny- yarns-very- well-told (2) books where (in my opinion) the quality/craft of the writing is so stonkingly, masterfully, awesome, that (even if the story is a bit slow… like) it reads the way a treat symphony sounds and feels (3) superbly researched factual and/or searingly-honest ‘insider’ looks that broaden our understanding of the world/shine a light into important shadows. The first book up for mention comes under the last of these three headings: ‘Deerhunting With Jesus: dispatches from America’s Class War’.
