Chapter 1: Building the nest

"You get paid to read?"  I get that a lot, and the answer is always the same, "yes, jealous?"  Just a small part of the job that I have at the university I work at is leading book groups.  Yeah, I know, and my parents thought I'd never use that extra English Literature degree.  Part of my job is to lead book groups for students and a seperate group with faculty and staff.  The faculty and staff book group was born from a book group just for faculty in an office I'd previously worked in.  When that office closed, I took the format, participant roster and ran with it. 

As any good planner does, I did research on book groups, and you know what I came up with?  A whole lot of old books (stuff from the early 90's, yeah I called that old) and practically nothing online about book groups like the ones I'd be leading.  So my only option...wing it.  Over the last four years I've lead over 30 book groups with over 470 participants rotating in and out over that time, and I've learned a lot more than I thought. 

This past year our book group discussed Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project and a lot of interesting things came from the discussions on that book.  One of the themes in that book is doing things that make you happy and as an avid estate sale shopper I decided to create a blog about how, as a younger shopper, I've learned to find deals and build a home with some really fun stuff.  Well, clearly that didn't pan out, but I still had the desire to blog, but about what?  This spring one of the faculty told the group that he had begun a book group with some of his students as a result of our time together (see #5 below).  He and the group were curious how I plan for and lead the book groups, mainly if I followed a guide or if I'd found an online resource or what I used.  This is when it happened, I had to share with them that I'd been just winging it for the last four years. 

As faculty and mentors are bound to do, they forced, I mean, encouraged me to begin a blog about what it is I do.  I kinda blew it off, but one faculty member in particular, Marybeth, stayed on me and encouraged me to just create a list of ideas and thoughts.  Nine handwritten pages later I realized, it wasn't just about the groups, it was about books, stories, what the group means to each of us, what a story can do for us.  The blog would be my "Happiness Project".

My plan for this blog is to be a place where we can;
1. Share ideas about how our book groups work
2. Share questions and thoughts on what we are reading so you can participate if you'd like
3. Share all those common things we do when it comes to reading
4. Share activities created for different texts and how it can enrich the reading and group experience
5. Share all the fun suprises that happen when groups of people share their feelings about literature

So settle in, this is gonna be fun, I promise!
Magpie