I’ve always wanted to join a book club.

I think.

As a (capital R) Reader, I have naturally thought that reading the same books and discussing them with other people would be edifying, illuminating and fun. Ergo, my process led me to believe that joining a book club would also be fun. Instead, my experience has been well, kinda not.

I have several friends with whom I love to informally talk about the books we read and there have been occasions when I have actually discussed some books in detail via email with a group of friends. But the book club I was seeking was the kind you see on movies (well, maybe without the Fifty Shades theme of the movie Book Club). You know, the ones with glamorous living rooms, appetizers that didn’t come from Costco, brutally honest life-long friends and oh, of course, wine.

A couple of years ago, my local library switched to a self-serve system to pick up borrower holds. It was then I noticed the alluring collections of all the same books held there for book clubs in my small town. Could it be possible to infiltrate one of these already existing groups, I asked? No, I was told. The memberships were closed.

Closed? I was crushed. I just knew I could be a valuable member. I wouldn’t talk too much. I wouldn’t stay too long. I wouldn’t bring any appies from Costco. Or wine with a flip-top. I would probably actually read the books. I could do this thing.

Unfortunately, our library’s only power lay in ordering the books for the clubs, not coercing them to take new members. After all, my library card cost the same as the next guy’s. I had no special library mafia privileges.

Last year, I noticed an ad for an open book club in a neighboring town that met at the museum. The selections listed for the next few months were great – they were all already on my TBR list. The club was meeting soon, so I actually bought the book and read it quickly and on the day of , arrived early to meet my new life-long friends.

Oh, I’m sorry, I was told. Book Club has moved its meeting place to a restaurant where they’re holding an open-house wine-tasting tonight.

Wait, what? Obviously, I had miscalculated just how important the wine factor was in order to facilitate literary discussion. But as much as I really had liked the book I had read and wanted to discuss it, the introverted-me that was okay with meeting strangers (that could become life-long friends) at a museum was definitely not okay at venturing into an unknown crowd of wine-testers. So I went home.

A few months ago, my local library responded to the pleas (not just from me) to facilitate a new book club, aptly called The Book Club at the Library. I went to the inaugural meeting and was cheered to see other women around the table. Oh, and one teenage boy.

We met again the next week, with instructions to bring some suggestions for books to read together in the next few months. Our librarian would help us by checking availability on the system. I was pumped. The book suggestions made by the other women were great. I felt like I was among kindred book spirits.

Except. Our lone male, unlike Greg from The Jane Austen Book Club, was not interested in reading about 18th century English courtship. Or even about suburban-housewives-on-the-prairie-going-through-menopause-or-divorce-or-other-stuff-like-that. He wanted to read about dragons.

Now I’m all for expanding my reading horizons and broadening my literary landscapes. But I wasn’t prepared for dragons. Yes, I’ve read (and loved) Harry Potter and The Hobbit and The Paper Bag Princess, but I wasn’t sure if I was up for a 500-page tome about morphing dragons disguised as humans living among us and the people who are trained to hunt and destroy them. With guns and grenades and stuff. (No broomsticks or eagles in sight.) And wouldn’t you know it: plenty of copies were available and this would be our first month’s assignment.

Sigh.

I read the damn book. I dragged myself through it. I kept waiting for it to captivate me and turn into a page turner. Or at least surprise me with a plot twist I didn’t see coming. (And I am highly unimaginative when it comes to guessing what happens next in 99.9% of the books I read.)

I didn’t want to be a book snob. So I used Post-it flags to note “interesting” parts of the story so I could at least contribute to the “lively” discussion I was hoping would ensue. But then, on that first day of The Book Club at the Library, only three of us showed up: me, the teenage boy and another woman who could only stay for 30 of the 120 minutes allotted for discussion of the book.

I think the problem was that the library didn’t serve wine.

Now, I’m not saying that there was something wrong with The Book That Shall Remain Unnamed. The young man obviously loved it because he was already on the third book of the series it was a part of. It just wasn’t what I want to read (and talk about) right now. Or ever.

The next month, I dutifully read and showed up for the meeting but this time, it was only me and the teenage boy who made it. Okay, I thought. This is NOT what I signed up for. And while I really wanted to talk about A Man Called Ove, my teenage companion had nothing to say.

The next month’s selection was…hard. And it was summer. The excuses abounded. So I didn’t go back. Which led me to ask the question, what exactly am I looking for?

Well, like-mindedness, for sure. And good books, which to me are the kind that I like to read. There’s only so many reading minutes, hours, days I have left. Perhaps I shouldn’t let someone else tell me what to read (if I’m not paying them tuition and expecting a certificate afterwards.)

And maybe I’ve figured out why there’s always wine at book clubs. Because book clubs should be about sharing what you’re eating and what you’re reading with friends around the table. I already have friends that I do that with. Maybe it doesn’t look the way it does in the movies, but maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Or maybe if I could handle more than one glass of wine, I could also handle dragons.