Love letter to my book club

All the reasons why it's the highlight of my month.

That’s it. Summer is done. We’re sliding into autumn. My winter duvet is on the bed, my TOAST jumper is back in rotation and I had French onion soup for lunch today. As the seasons change, I’m reflecting on what I’m gladly taking into autumn and the first thing that came to mind was: book club.

For the first seven years I lived in London I spent most my weeknights in Soho spending a small fortune on mediocre small plates. I never spent time where I lived, it was just somewhere I returned to. When I moved into my flat, I wanted to feel like I had a community nearby. I wanted to have ‘a local’. I wanted to be able to spontaneously walk to a friend’s house and watch Sex and the City. I wanted to know my neighbours and do whatever it is that neighbours do for another (borrow tools?). A book club felt like a good way to change, so in January I invited a few local friends to the pub with the idea that we would read a women’s fiction and try different local pubs each time.

I saw this as a good opportunity to initiate friendships with people I’d been admiring from afar. Why does making friends as you get older feel so scary? It’s like dating, but the rejection is somehow more terrifying, more personal. But I decided to be brave. I even emailed someone! The thrill when she accepted! Some ignored me or politely declined, but it was less bruising than I’d expected. So, if you’re reading this and have a crush on a cool person in a coffee shop near you… ask them on a friend date. You have nothing to lose and I promise it won’t make you look lonely, but open, kindhearted and like you have friends in abundance that you’d extend this kind of offer so casually.

I wrote in The Tidal Year about the power of female friendship, and book club has given me a new insight into a different element: the collective female friendship. Oh, what a joy a group of women is. There’s such warmth, such wisdom! I feel full of champagne bubbles as people arrive and are instantly showered in compliments about ‘that coat!’ or ‘your hair!’ We take turns buying bottles of wine, returning from the bar holding glasses by their stems like a bunch of flowers. We eat fancy little anchovies on toast in front of a pub fire. We sit outside in summer dresses with our sunburned shoulders side to side while we sip rosé. Someone opens their notepad. Someone else opens the highlighted passages on their Kindle. Everyone is so incredibly enthusiastic and I feel lucky to have this group of compassionate and clever women.

We often chat about sex and relationships which is great. I love nothing more. I’m very committed to ‘gossip’ as a centuries old bonding ritual, but it’s not often wise. Gossiping about book characters however… guilt free!

It also allows us to disagree in passionate and powerful ways. I feel we get the best of each other when this happens. Something I’ve struggled with in friendships is conflict. I can do this is in romantic relationships, but find it difficult to ‘fight and make up’ with friends. We rarely all like the same characters or authors and explain why. We listen well. We disagree well. It’s a wonderful place to start a friendship from. We’re already practicing how to say: I’m going to have to disagree with you on that one. I’ve found that with my book club friends we share more honestly and our dynamic benefits from good communication. It’s something I’m trying to take into all my friendships.

I’m sure part of that is also because we talk about a lot of ‘Big Topics’ in book club. We’ve read books about class, mental health, death, motherhood, relationships, women’s rights. I’m approaching the stage of life where sitting down with a pint to discuss careers, ambition, fertility is like arriving at the pub with a loaded gun. There’s a lot of skin in the game now. People talk from their own perspective and, consciously or not, we often speak to validate our own life choices. But with books, characters give us a way to feel through these subjects, to figure things out with curiosity and empathy, to challenge one another and our preconceptions. It becomes less about ‘me’ and ‘you’. It helps us get out of our head. It helps us change our mind.  

This is stating the obvious, but a book club has also helped me read more. I love the deadlines and think we’ve all been encouraged to read and read quite fast because we always want to see each soon (how cute is that). A few times people have arrived with a pile of pre-loved books to swap, all with pages dog-eared to sections she liked. Someone even wrapped theirs in silk ribbons like little gifts. It’s so romantic! Book club is so romantic.

I was listening to a recent episode of Sentimental Garbage and Caroline said, “I now know who the people are that are going to get me through the next phase of my life.” Isn’t that a wonderful thing about getting older? Knowing who those people are. I certainly know who the friends taking me through autumn are. They’re the friends near where I live, who are ready to talk to me about books, ready to change my mind, ready to listen. I even have my local girls who come over to watch Sex and the City now! I have favourite people and favourite places in my neighbourhood. It feels like home in a way it didn’t before. I really live here.

Starting your own book club?

• It can feel intimidating to start a whole ‘club’, but start small. Meet up with one friend, and go from there. If everyone invites one person, suddenly you have a club! I’ve found that keeping it local has been a special part of ours as it’s encouraged me to invite people I meet in my area (bookshops or at the lido) and deepen my connection to where I live.

• We meet at 7pm and have food and drinks, then wait until 8pm to start talking about the book so that if people don’t want to eat or are running late from work, they can join then.

• Oh, and check the pub doesn’t have a quiz on the same day or you wont be able to hear each other.

• We each score the book out of ten and average the marks. The scores don’t really matter, but it’s nice to have a reference for what we all enjoyed most. We also score the pub (this gets divisive).

• We’ve selected new books and ones that have been out for a while to give everyone a chance to save some cash and get their copy from the library or second-hand bookshops.

• My biggest piece of advice? Don’t be afraid to be in charge. It’s good to have someone who takes the lead on booking a pub and adding the info to the WhatsApp group description. On our first meeting I asked everyone to do a little icebreaker and go around saying their name, favourite nook and a book they couldn’t finish and why. Afterwards, I felt embarrassed and apologised for being bossy. A friend messaged me privately to say that I shouldn’t apologise, it meant we all got to know each other and she appreciated someone initiating a moment of collective connection. Take charge, it’s ok!

Freya x

P.S I’d love to answer some of your questions in the upcoming newsletters, so leave a comment below and I’ll answer your questions.

Nature I’m noticing…

The sound of the River Ness.

Sparkly, silver raindrops on cobwebs. I wish I could wear them.

How good red rowan berries and lilac lavender look together.

Mushrooms on the forest floor, brown as brioche buns.

Questions I’m asking…

How many nights a week should I be home? Do I go out too much?

What should our next book club read next?

Why do l continue to worry about things at night when I know I never solve problems then?

Is Sauna culture simply too cool and groovy for me?

Answers I’ve found…

Mice have natural noise cancellation, they stop hearing their own feet so they can hear cats approaching.

I like whiskey now!

Apparently a six-second kiss triggers an oxytocin release and can deepen connection.

Carrie really should’ve ended up with The Russian.

As always, the questions and answers don’t seem to match. That’s ok.