For February, the staff book club, which chooses genres instead of individual titles, chose to read about monuments. That was extended into architecture and engineering, and I re-read “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand.
Mostly I re-read The Fountainhead because I wanted to spend book club time comparing and contrasting two buildings that I’ve worked in. The building that the library is located in now is gorgeous, but in many ways it doesn’t “work. For instance, there aren’t enough bathrooms or meeting spaces for staff or the public, and the beautiful glassed arch leaks like a sieve and has cost millions to repair. There ‘s no equipped break room.
For a period of two years my unit was shifted to a new office building across the street. It was a fabulous and very different experience. The space was built to house office workers and to meet our needs. There was plenty of room for cubicles offices interactive meeting space and commonsense break rooms. From the outside, the building looked rather dull. But on the inside it did exactly what a building of it’s type should do.
And voila! We have two buildings to compare “The Fountainhead ” to.
But for my 2015 book club quest, I also wanted to talk about what works and what doesn’t work in book clubs. This month the staff bookclub ran into a common problem area. The person who suggested the topic opted not to come to the bookclub discussion. That’s something that just doesn’t work after half a dozen people have taken time and energy to read a book based on something that you have chosen. It’s a problem area that we’ve covered in the BTB L bookclub and one that I think other book clubs could use to their advantage. If you suggest a book or a topic you are expected to show upand participate in the discussion unless you were on your deathbed. Proper punishment for not doing so? A firm beating with a wet noodle. Definitely.
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