No Wine, Just Great Lines
I am in a book group that actually spends most of our time together discussing our chosen book. We call ourselves “The Great Lines Book Group.” My Great Lines Book Group has one purpose, and one purpose only: to discuss books. Unlike most book groups I’ve been part of, we don’t drink wine. But we suck up lots of great lines.
The delicious, energizing, inspiring, and addicting lines come from literature. We take our lines directly from the book we’ve read for that month’s meeting, our chosen texts underlined and highlighted, pages tagged and ready to share.
We don’t start out with the carefully chosen words. We plunge into the plot of the book we are discussing, the characters, the landscapes and the atmosphere. We are all very big on atmosphere. But we save the best for last.
The sharing of our chosen lines is the prize at the end of our lengthy, sometimes exhausting and always interesting, discussions. We approach tentatively: are we ready? Who wants to go first? Once the first offering has been made, the floodgates open, and the lines come pouring out. Rare is the member who chooses just one line or even two. “So many to choose from! I just had to bring three lines this week.” We all nod in agreement: we understand. “I have four.” “I have three, also.” “I have one, but it is a paragraph long!”
What is so interesting about the sharing of our “great lines” is that this is the moment when we reveal our inner selves. By choosing one or two or three specific lines, we are allowing the other members sprawled around the room a glimpse into our own psyche. The words we deem worthy of the highlighting pen point to the issues we are struggling with in our lives, or underscore characteristics we aspire to, or hint at preoccupations that haunt and taunt us.
I was not the originator of the “Great Lines” book group theme. A friend from Chicago passed the tip onto me, as a way to keep a book group focused on the topic of the book and also ensuring that everyone has a part to play in the book discussion. But I have found the true value of the “great lines” focus is how it has allowed me to discover more about myself and about my friends, all through the sharing of the words given by an author through the gift of a book.
