I read a great story in the July 8th Chicago Tribune Magazine this morning. It was a great demonstration of modern technology being used to encourage book reading. Real, tactile, ink on paper books. And to make it more interesting, they encourage people to meet face to face to discuss these books.
The article was called “bookclub.facetoface” and was written by Rick Kogan, resident gravel-voiced Luddite and throwback to the old days of newspaper reporting. His story highlights a website called Gapers Block which is a great resource for local news, restaurants, entertainment and anything Chicago. It is there that I learned that “The Spindle” in Berwyn is in danger of being removed to make way for, what else, a Walgreen’s, a spreading cancer on our landscape. But I digress.
The Gapers Block Book Club meets on the second Monday night of every month at the Book Cellar to discuss fiction by Chicago area authors and non-fiction about Chicago. The idea for the book club came about because gapersblock.com editor and librarian Alice Maggio believed that people didn’t realize what a great literary tradition Chicago has had and continues to have.
I commend Gapers Block for their efforts to get people to read, to learn and to interact in person. The contradiction of doing so through a website is interesting to me, but it is such a great tool for social networking, I find it great that technology can get people together in the flesh, to discuss ideas and enjoy a good, old-fashioned book.
I really enjoyed your post! It’s refreshing to hear about real books, and meeting people face-to-face! Learning about all this new technology is fascinating, but I’m a traditionalist at heart. Nothing fills my heart more than real books, and real people,
Thank you so much for highlighting 2 interesting things. One was the GapersBlock website. It sure has a lot of fascinating info! I will definitely add this to my reader to keep up-to-date on new things going on. And second was the Book Club. It was reassuring to me that there are still people out there who like to read a book and then get together to discuss the book. For the last 12 years I have been a member of a book club made up of librarians. We have a blast! I also run 4th and 5th grade book clubs in my school. It’s good to know that as these kids get older there will be opportunities out there for them to continue discussing good literature. Yes, Virginia, there really are groups of people who still like to sit in the same room and talk about books. What a relief!