BECAUSE the words “book” and “cool” use the same buttons on a phone, messages typed with the predictive text function can mistakenly send the wrong word.
Teenagers caught onto this and substituted the two in spoken language, as in “OMG he is so book”.
Some people have long equated books with cool; namely book clubbers. Book clubs come in all different sorts. A look at just a few book clubs in Wellington show some that are single and some mixed sex, they meet anywhere from weekly to a few times a year and read everything from classics to comics. Membership ranges from a handful of people to more than a dozen. Widening the scope internationally you can find book clubs that meet online and that have millions of members, like Oprah’s Book Club.
Island Bay’s Clyde Street Book Club has been meeting for almost two years. The club meets monthly and numbers fluctuate between three and 15. Unlike the traditional book club, no set book is prescribed. Instead donations from members enter a small library that is then open to all members for borrowing.
Nadine Kozler is an original member.
“Because our book club is not as structured as others there’s the opportunity for lots of different ideas and discussions are free to follow tangents. That’s the joy of it for me - one conversation leads to another.”
Kozler joined the club for the chance to see friends more.
“When you enter your 20s and the ‘real world’ you lose the chance to see your friends on a daily basis. Now I know that once a month I’ll get to see some of the most amazing women I know and that’s a massive draw card. An added bonus is getting to meet their friends and expand my own social circle.”
Aurora Soliz moved to Wellington in 2009 from small-town California to study at Victoria University. A friend invited her to the Clyde Street Book Club.
“It can be really hard to meet people in a new city; everyone has established groups of friends already. The only place to meet people aside from university is on a night out and the conversation is usually alcohol-induced,” she says.
“Women can be especially hard to meet in more than a superficial way. From the start book club was a place where everybody was open to conversation and seemed to have a lot in common.”
Local libraries provide advice and sometimes a venue for those wishing to start their own clubs, but book clubs can take whatever form best suits the group.
“Sometimes our meetings are themed. My favourites were the ‘eggnog Christmas’ and ‘clothes swap’ editions,” says Kozler.
During one notable Clyde Street Book Club meeting, the women were even invited to sing on the latest album for Wellington band Harbour City Electric. Now that is book.