Deborah —

Thank goodness you’re in the expert column right now.

I have a problem I never thought I’d have. I am part of a very small book group. I worked in bookstores for years before getting my career together and am often asked by the other members to pick the next read. I don’t mind that, I kind of dig the power.

The problem is they constantly shoot down my ideas, often because I’ve already read the books. But most of those books were great for the book groups I ran while I was still in the book stores! It’s been years since I even picked most of them up, not to mention the money I’d save because I already own copies.

How does one outside that insular world of books pick things for a club to read? I’ve tried websites but find them less than inspiring. And I have no desire to devolve by following the Oprah list or, god forbid, Kelly Ripa picks.

Thanks for your help!

Baffled Book Group Leader

Well, you could do worse than Anna Karenina. I’m just saying. I totally understand the desire not to join the herd, though.

I haven’t been a member of an in-person book group, but I have been leading them on Chicklit for four years now. Out of the forty-some odd books I have been responsible for choosing, I think fewer than four were ones I’d read beforehand. One of the things that’s always irked me about Oprah’s Book Club — and it’s an OBC-related complaint I rarely hear — is that until her recent selection of Anna Karenina, she’d always read the books beforehand. Now, I understand it’s pretty risky to pick a book that one hasn’t read for the world’s most populous book club. Imagine Oprah having to go on the air and tell everyone she couldn’t finish it, or she hated it, or thought it was dreck. Man, wouldn’t the publishing industry have its knickers in a Gordian knot? Still, I think it’s kinda bogus to have a club where you basically make people read things you’ve already read and think are good. And it’s not like Oprah’s exactly sticking her neck out with the Tolstoy, there. I think part of the value of reading is openness to the possibility that you won’t like or appreciate or understand something. It’s embiggening!

I get the impression from the fact that “they constantly shoot down [your] ideas, often because [you]’ve already read the books” that your group is hoping to get guidance from you toward selections that you can all discover together. It seems clear that they’re not so interested in reading something one member has already read, but are hoping to hear suggestions from someone who may have more familiarity with authors and titles than they do. So if you’re tempted, say, to recommend The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel because you loved it, why not pick something else by Barbara Kingsolver you haven’t read? Think laterally. Biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs can be especially rich sources for book group discussion. If you worked in bookstores for years, no matter how voraciously you’ve read, there must be many books and authors that looked interesting that you just never got around to. I know I feel like if I lived to be a thousand I’d never be able to read all the books that I want to. Now’s the time to dredge those titles up from your memory and consider them.

The way I pick books is to collect lots of suggestions: from book reviews, newspaper articles, websites (I get a lot of ideas from The Guardian Unlimited Books, The Hyde Park Review of Books, Arts and Letters Daily, Bookslut, and Words Without Borders), television, magazines, Amazon, friends/family, and browsing in bookstores and libraries. I make a particular point of soliciting suggestions from the people who participate in my book clubs. Then I research the most promising and whittle the list down to a manageable number. Perhaps the world of books is “insular,” but it feels so large to me, and I feel so deeply immersed in/overwhelmed by it that I just don’t notice. My biggest problem (book club leadership-wise) is trying to cull a handful of books from hundreds of titles. You should definitely be soliciting suggestions from your club members; if they never give any input and yet always complain about your suggestions, I guess they deserve what they get.

Also, I have to say, I don’t think it’s entirely fair to bias your selections based on what you already own. Everyone else in the group has the burden of buying the books, and unless you are compensating for that in some other way, such as by paying for all the food/drink at every meeting, there’s really no reason you shouldn’t share in that burden. It’s possible your group members feel slightly resentful when you recommend books you’ve already bought and read. They don’t see any investment of time/energy/money on your part. If the expenses are really onerous, there are several things you can do: a) establish a paperback-only policy; b) set a price limit (per book, or an annual limit to be averaged over however many books the club reads per year); c) stick to things that are readily found secondhand (genre fiction, particularly, though it doesn’t usually make for very great discussions) or in libraries, and then make selections well in advance in order to give people time to hunt for them; and/or d) discuss fewer books. It may be useful to have a discussion about people’s expectations for the group, just to make sure everyone’s on the same page (hee).

If you need some books that will provide some inspiration, here are some suggestions: 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide by Erica Bauermeister, Jesse Larsen, Holly Smith; Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason by Nancy Pearl; The Readers’ Choice: 200 Book Club Favourites by Victoria Golden McMains, A Year of Reading: A Month-By-Month Guide to Classics and Crowd-Pleasers for You and Your Book Group by Elisabeth Ellington and Jane Freimiller; The New Lifetime Reading Plan : The Classical Guide to World Literature by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major; The Reading Group Book: The Complete Guide to Starting and Sustaining a Reading Group, With Annotated Lists of 250 Titles for Provocative Discussion by David Laskin and Holly Hughes; The New York Public Library Guide to Reading Groups by Rollene Saal; The salon.com Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Authors edited by Laura Miller with Adam Begley; What to Read: The Essential Guide for Reading Group Members and Other Book Lovers by Mickey Pearlman; and The Reader’s Catalog (various editions) by Geoffrey O’Brien, Stephen Wasserstein, and Helen Morris. If you can’t find some fantastic, “discussable” books in these volumes…then I don’t know what to tell you. You might have to let Kelly Ripa lead you around by the nose.

Dear Sars,

I have found myself in a strange situation. Perhaps you have some good advice.

As background, I am a 20-year-old student attending a university in my native Nordic country. (I hope you can excuse my wobbly English.) I am happily married to a great guy, and we share a rather rare and “exotic” religion. Because of this, we were featured in the city paper’s “followers of various religions” article series this fall. This happened right at the beginning of the semester, and many of my friends spotted the article, which included a big picture of me and Hubby hugging.

Well, there was This Guy attending the same lectures as I did, which took place in a huge lecture hall. I had never met him, yet he seemed to sit nearby, and sometimes comment on what I was talking about, with my friends before the beginning of the lecture. They were just normal remarks anyone would make, as part of, say, a conversation ridiculing professors’ toupees, but the weird part was, that I had no clue who he was, and couldn’t figure out why he seemed to know my full name. He came from a completely different field of study (IT) to attend a history lecture, so there’s no chance that he had seen me somewhere before. Well, I asked him where we had met, and he seemed to have read the article about Hubby and I. And he had asked about me from a friend of his, who had many of the same classes as I did last year.

I asked This Guy’s friend what was going on, and I got the same story — that he’d just seen the article in the paper and asked him about me. All of this seemed a bit quirky, but unimportant. I forgot about him.

I live about a twenty-minute walk away from campus. A couple of times I have been hurrying to class, looked over my shoulder, and spotted him right behind me. He then strikes up a conversation about the quality of teaching in a particular course or whatnot, and we make polite chit-chat till we make it to the lecture hall, where I sit somewhere away from him and ignore him.

Today I was walking home, and looked over my shoulder. This Guy was there again, instantly greeting me and striking up a conversation. I kept up a polite conversation with him as we walked towards the student-housing complex, but I felt really weird. I’m totally used to walking around with guys and having conversations with them, but this felt, for some reason, not right. To be on the safe side, I went into a grocery store to buy a Mars bar just to get rid of him, and not show him where exactly I lived.

He gives me a weird vibe. I am very used to talking with guys — I get along better with guys than girls, actually — having two brothers and lots of male friends, but for some reason I am not comfortable talking with him. He never makes any inappropriate comments, or talks about anything else but school stuff. I am not attracted to him in the least, and frequently bring up Hubby.

What is this guy up to? Does he have a crush on me? Does he want to talk about religion, since he’s brought up the article a few times? Is he stalking me? Is he just someone annoying who doesn’t have a clue? Am I totally overreacting?

How should I act toward this guy? Should I do something? I don’t want to overreact, but I want to be safe, I don’t want to give him any ideas, and I want to know what the hell is going on. I never greet him myself, and steer away from him when I can.

Sign me,
Weirded Out

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Dear Weirded,

I think you’ve done exactly right so far — especially trusting your instincts. If you think he’s hinky (in case this isn’t a term that’s made it to where you live, it basically means “something’s not right”), better to take steps, which you’ve done.

I think he’s probably just socially maladroit, but just in case, keep track of where and when you see him; try walking a different way to class, or enlisting a buddy to walk with you and engage you in conversation to deflect This Guy; make sure your Hubby and friends know he’s weirding you out.

Coming right out and telling him that he makes you uncomfortable and to leave you alone might just make the situation awkward instead of solving it, so for now, work on avoiding him as best you can and sticking to other people — but if he’s really bugging you, say so to his face. If he gets offended, so be it; this isn’t someone whose feelings you’re trying to spare, so if it comes to that, just tell him what’s what and make it clear you want him to leave you alone. But for the time being, remain alert and minimize the opportunities he has to interact with you.

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Dear Sars,

I am a 28-year-old adult child of an alcoholic. Frequently my mother who lives on another coast drunk-dials me and says the worst things a parent could ever say to a child. Tonight I was the epicenter of her wrath even though I live 3,000 miles away and I am finally fed up. She said things to me that are so bad that I cannot repeat. I have warned her several times that I could no longer tolerate her verbal abuse and I would have to cut all ties to her if it happened again. Well, it did. The last time I looked at the caller ID this evening there were 23 messages from her which I cannot bear to retrieve. I’m nauseated.

Do you think it’s better to just ignore her from here on out, actually do what I have been saying I am going to do all this time, or should I wait for a few days and try to catch her before it’s beer thirty on her coast and explain to her exactly what it was that set me off and what is hurting me? The reason I ask is because I have done the latter before and it seemed to help only for a few months. I have no other family to help me here, just a younger brother who depends on her for college tuition that feels in the middle and I won’t put him there. I don’t need her for money or anything, I just want her to be my mom. This has been going on for 20 years. Is it time to move on, dry my tears and say forget it? I’ve really tried to make it work, it’s only causing me pain. What I would feel guilty for is not being loyal to my mom. That’s my problem.

Thanks,
Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

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Dear Tired,

Of course you’d feel guilty — that’s to be expected — but the problem, I think, is that she plays on that in order to continue abusing and hectoring you. She gets the sense that you won’t back up your threat to cut her off with action, so she keeps calling and putting you through hell, because she knows she can.

It’s not easy, I can imagine, but there’s no up side to letting this go on, really. Don’t pick up the messages; delete them. Don’t answer when she calls. You warned her, and now you need to give her actions consequences. Let your brother know you’re there for him, but you’re done, and — be done. It doesn’t have to be forever, but you need a break from her, at least for a while.

Your mom hasn’t shown you much loyalty, behaving this way; if she’s not going to care about your feelings, you’ll need to look out for them your own self, and the best way to do that right now is to cut off contact.

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I have a question and I don’t know who else can help me. I was raised in northern New Jersey and western Connecticut, and as my father was also raised in NJ, he raised me as a Yankees fan. My love of the Yankees was ingrained in me at an early age. Those were the lean years, when Mattingly reigned supreme, so it’s not like I came of age as they won one World Series after another.

But I have come to a crossroads in my life. We moved far away from Connecticut when I was in high school, ten years ago. I haven’t lived that close to New York since. The last game I saw at Yankee Stadium was in 1993.

I now live in the D.C. region. The Orioles have always been a favorite of mine, as my mom’s family is from Baltimore. So I’ve always liked them. But now they’re the team I follow. More so than the Yankees. I can rattle off the O’s lineup and feed you stats for Mora, Tejada, and Roberts, whereas I only recognize the Yankees lineup. I realize this is my own fault; I haven’t been putting in any effort to follow the Yankees that closely. I try and catch them when they’re at Camden Yards, but I find myself conflicted: Who should I root for?

I don’t know what to do, Sars. I love them both. I always check to make sure, at the very least, that the Yankees won (and the Red Sox lost). But I feel like a traitor. I’m trying to make some penance by trekking up to New York for a game this summer. But it’ll probably be when the O’s are in town. I can’t help myself. Do you have any words of wisdom for me?

Why Couldn’t One of Them Be in the National League?

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Dear At Least You Didn’t Move To Kansas City,

Baseball loyalty is a strange thing, and often it follows the “if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with” principle. I was raised in a Mets household, but the TV room in college was ruled by Yankee fans so I did what I had to do. My father was a Philadelphia As fan as a kid; I think we all know how that turned out. If you’re a fan of the game, I think it’s okay to feel fondly for the teams you rooted for in the past while transferring your day-to-day attentions to the team you live near.

And honestly, transferring your affection away from the Yankees isn’t going to get you into any hot water with other fans. It’s transferring it to the Yankees that earns you a ration of shit. Your team is having some issues this year, but it’s a storied franchise that plays in a rad ballpark, and the manager is hot. Oh…did I say that last part out loud? (Heh.) You still follow the game, that’s what matters.

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Dear Sars,

First of all, thanks for dishing out the great advice. I have a question that was brought up by an entry on the 7/9 issue of The Vine. “Weird” had a question about being in a relationship with a man who doesn’t love him/her back. Your advice was to get out, because life’s too short to be with someone who isn’t in love with you. While I agree with that in general, my question is, how much time do you give someone to, well, get on with it and fall in love with you already?

I’ve been with my boyfriend for only about six months, and while I am in love with him, and while I am sure he likes me a lot and enjoys spending time with me, I don’t think he is in love with me. I don’t want to waste either of our time hanging on to a relationship that has no future, but at the same time, I can’t help wondering whether he will fall in love with me eventually, and I can’t stand the thought of breaking up with him, on the chance that it will happen sooner or later. I guess my question is, at what point in a relationship should you decide that if it hasn’t happened by now, it probably isn’t going to happen? I know there’s no clear-cut or universal answer, but I’d appreciate any thoughts you have on the subject.

Thanks,
Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

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Dear Waiting,

Well, I’m of two minds about this. I do feel quite strongly that falling in love is, in some ways, its own reward — the fact that you can feel that way is an affirmation, and the fact that another person exists who can make you feel that way is an affirmation, even if the feeling isn’t returned.

But if the feeling isn’t returned, I also feel that, past a certain point, you have to accept that and move on, because it gets lonely, and because as affirming as love can be on its own merits, it’s truly affirming when it’s shared — and when it isn’t, it’s lonely, and you shouldn’t have to feel that way.

Where the line is, I don’t know exactly; it’s different for every person and in every relationship, and there’s always the fear that, if you give up or turn away, you’ll have done so prematurely or discouraged him from speaking frankly or otherwise made a mistake that could have gotten you the love you want in return. But take it from someone who has stuck around too long on a number of occasions — if he’s that easily put off, he’s either not in love with you or he’s not worth the aggro. “But –” No. A relationship is work, yes, but it’s not supposed to be that hard; you shouldn’t have to align everything that carefully in order to get what you need.

It’s not a matter of “you just know” or “if he’s not there in a year, he’s not coming.” It’s more that you start thinking to yourself that you’ve invested so much emotion and energy already that you don’t want to give in now…and that’s a sign, kind of.

I mean, not that he’s not a great guy, and not that it’s wrong to want him to love you back and to hope that happens — I’m sure he is, and it certainly isn’t. Six months, you’ve got some time to see what happens. But if it’s clear that he’s more fond of you or used to you than in love with you after a year? It’s not enough, and it actively hurts, usually, and I think it’s then that you have to look at the situation, understand that you won’t get what you want no matter how long you wait, and leave in the interests of getting it down the road.

Like I said, everyone’s different and it’s never an easy choice, but settling doesn’t pay off like you think it will, so don’t do it for too long.

[7/15/04]

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Tags:   boys (and girls)   etiquette   the fam