I've been running a book club at my 'day job' for a few years now. It's mostly just me and a handful of women chatting and eating lunch over zoom, but it's got a little magic to it.
In our large and often-bureaucratic organisation, our communication can be superficial - task-focused or gossip-trading. But at Book Club, our emails and emoji-speak give way to honest, sometimes risky, sharing. Our two-dimensional work avatars step forward as complex 3D humans. Connections grow - even without the help of wine.
It looks like a labour of love but in truth there's little work involved. It's staunchly casual, lacking format and rules. Book choices are democratic. Only the genre is strict - non-fiction only, in the vicinity of the self-help, philosophy and memoir shelves of an imaginery bookshop. We choose whatever broadly supports the goal of better understanding the 'human condition', and therefore ourselves. Fiction does this too - but there's other workplace book clubs that meet that need.
When I look with some perspective at what we do and how we do it, I understand that our book club (like all book clubs) is alternative form of group therapy. What is shared at book club stays at book club. We move back into our professional roles, and our conversation goes back to the next deadline or meeting.
Along these lines, I'm thinking of starting a book club for therapists, counsellors and clients alike. For those I might meet lost in thought at the library or bookshop reading the back covers, deciding what to spend finite dollars on. A book club like the one at work, dedicated to understanding humans and our relationships, overcoming our struggles and soaking in the creative strategies the smart and wise writers have decided to share in book form, for us to learn and apply.
If you'd like to join, email me at martine@divingforpearls.com.au
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