We’ve seen such a wide range of subjects and styles in the eight books we’ve read so far that it’s hard to make generalizations about them, except for basic ones, like the fact that there is some sort of crime in each of them (often but not always a murder) and some figure who tries to solve the crime (maybe a police officer or maybe an amateur detective or maybe just some random person who gets caught up in the plot), and some solution to the crime offered at the novel’s end. I’m beginning to think that there’s actually very little that clearly defines the mystery genre. Each meeting is as much about the genre and how each example fits into it as it is about the book itself. We’re not looking at the books in isolation, but instead, with every book we read, we’re building a basis of comparison and a body of knowledge about the genre that we can draw on when reading and discussing. I can’t recommend highly enough having a specific theme or genre for your book group I have limited experience with book groups I’ll admit, but with this one, having a focus has made the discussions so rich and interesting. My mystery book group had another fabulous meeting this past Sunday to discuss Dorothy Sayers’s novel Gaudy Night.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |