Yes, you guessed it, another Society Spotlight to brighten up your day! This time we hear it from Book Socs Vice Editor Ellen Lee.
Can you tell us about when Book Soc first established and who it is for?
Book Club was founded in October 2020, at the height of the pandemic. We found our footing as a society with no in person activity, just Discord and Zoom events. What better way to pass the time during lockdown than to read? Fortunately, we have been able to adapt our event format to keep up with the lifting of restrictions and keep things fresh and interesting.
Though we are called Book club, we are not the average style book club! Being busy college students, we don’t do the usual “read one book a month and discuss it”, instead we welcome readers of all interests and types. The best thing about Book Club is that you don’t have to be an avid, constant reader. There’s always something for everyone over our semesters of events. Our hope is that we give people a community to meet with other book lovers and discuss all things book related.
Can you talk us through about what a regular meeting looks like?
Book Club is a relatively big society, with over 1700 members. When everything came back in-person in September 2021, we experienced a huge surge in membership, gaining over 1000 members in a year. Winning “Most New Members” and “Best New Society” at the 2022 Soc’s Awards was a definite highlight for us, and reassured us that there is demand for a Book society at the college.
We try to vary our events to cater to every type of reader, be they fantasy lovers, poetry fans, or aficionados of classic literature. Every Tuesday evening you’ll find us in the Human Biology Building, holding a quiz, games night, discussions, arts and crafts and much more – all book themed of course. You never know what you’ll get at a Book Club meeting from week to week. One of our most successful events was our “Book B*tching Session” where we tore into some of our much-hated (and much loved!) tropes in books. There’s nothing quite like complaining to really bond with people!
Any final thoughts or wishes for the Society’s future?
The next chapter of Book Club has yet to be written (see what I did there?) but there’s no doubt the society is in good hands, given the amazing committee we have and the great regulars who come to our events.
