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What Makes Book Clubs So Important?

Hard to find in person, underreached online, a book club may be what you are missing in your life

Jess the Avocado
Counter Arts
9 min readDec 30, 2024

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Photo by cottonbro studio

Murakami once said, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” He had a point, but what about wanting to feel part of something? And not something fictitious (though it may revolve around fiction) and unthemed, but something with meaning?

And what if, while I cherish my own thoughts, I also want to understand what others are thinking?

Social media phenomena such as BookTok are almost as controversial as Murakami’s alleged misogyny, dividing people between those who think it is undermining the literate field of publications and reading, those who think it is a positive movement due to its popularity, and those who don’t care about it but agree about the mediocre homogeneity of its content.

Other social media platforms may try to have more depth, but fall short of followers, aside from some popular book influencers.

I have read some great books from social media recommendations, and some bad ones too. I still cherish my random finds as they are what help me get out of my own echo chamber, but I still struggle to find meaningful two-way discussions around…

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Counter Arts
Counter Arts

Published in Counter Arts

The (Counter)Cultural One-Stop for Nonfiction on Medium… incorporating categories for: ‘Art’, ‘Culture’, ‘Equality’, ‘Photography’, ‘Film’, ‘Mental Health’, ‘Music’ and ‘Literature’.

Jess the Avocado
Jess the Avocado

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