Book reading groups are a great way to unite in marriage. It’s intuitive that when two people spend time together doing intimate things, they tend to require more of that experience. Reading together is a fairly intimate way to pass the time, since one of the purposes of reading something is to share it with someone. Also, if we can learn a lot from the subject someone reads, it stands to reason that a partner’s choice of books gives us an intimate insight into who they are. These days, too, with the rising cost of doing anything, or going anywhere, and the limits placed on our pockets, a reading group makes sense. They are, after all, free.
There are several such online reading groups available, with names like Shelfari and GoodReads, ReadingGroupChoices, etc. These groups offer all kinds of interesting and engaging ideas for married couples. My wife and I are signed up for GoodReads, for example. GoodReads has a dazzling array of book offerings, from literally thousands of books to read, reviews on most of them, some from expert reviewers, some from newbies like us, and a five-star rating system. The site has a newsletter, a portal that allows us to keep track of the books we’ve read, and another to finally record those we’ve always wanted to read but keep forgetting, even when we’re standing in the library surrounded by books.
These online reading groups often have another function as well. They offer the opportunity to purchase any book you wish to purchase, many in eBook format and some for your Kindle, BEBOOK, Sony eBook reader, or Franklin device. Prices are industry standard and delivery is the same.
One of the results that we have discovered from the reading group is the large number of books that we have read. As we go through the list, we rediscover old literary friends we’ve long forgotten. There was a little book I read while in Vietnam called Sagittarius Rising, written by a fellow pilot named Cecil Lewis; A Steinbeck classic, The Red Pony, which I did a report on in high school, way back in the 20th century; there was one of my all-time favorites, Kon Tiki by Thor Hyerdahl, a little book that may have been responsible for my wanderlust and need to try new things.
But the real benefit that my wife and I discovered in our reading group is how those books have really shaped each of us. Just as Kon Tiki opened my vision to all kinds of wonderful things in the world beyond Columbus Ohio, my hometown, my wife’s attraction to various positive thinking gurus like Jack Canfield, Dr. Wayne Dyer, T. Harv Eker and the rest gives me a perspective on her that explains a lot about our relationship.
Married couples can reap many rewards by joining one of the many online book groups. They may find books that they have always intended to read; they can keep track of what they have already read; they may be surprised at how much they have read over the years; and they can take the opportunity a good book offers to share whatever message it contains with their spouse. Here’s an example of how this can work. My wife recently started a book called “The Geography of Bliss” by Eric Weiner. It is the story of a self-described ‘grump’ and his global search for a happy place somewhere on the planet. The book is a journey through the most exotic, distant, fascinating, happy and not so happy places in the world. After my spouse finished, I read the book and we shared our thoughts on it.
I enjoyed the job immensely. The writing is very good; interesing theme; attractive idea. I recommended the book to my friends.
My wife did not finish the book. She claimed that she was too focused on the negative and dismissive. She is so positive about everything, that the basic premise of the author seemed to identify what made people happy and then explain it, based on some environmental, social, economic or cultural factor.
I intervened that her observation was correct, that the author did explain the happiness of a population in that way. But she replied that she might be the other way around; perhaps the level of social, economic, and cultural happiness displayed was a result of being happy in the first place, and all the rest of the package followed. He told me a lot about her.
So the books we share and the ideas they contain tell us a lot about our peers. If a spouse tends to be a closed book about things, reluctant, slow to share, then a book reading group may be a good idea to open it up. The books are bound and then read. Maybe they have the potential to join us too.