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Christopher Farai Charamba The Reader
I have always considered reading to be an individual and personal activity. One immerses themselves in the pages and is whisked away to world’s unknown, created by another who has time and skill of putting ink to paper.

As such, an activity that I was not fond of while in school was group reading, where we’d all take turns to read a paragraph or page. The voice of the reader never sounded the way it should in my head and often the story became less interesting.

The only pleasurable thing about the exercise was that it was an effective time pusher and a great way to waste the school day.

While I am not a fan of group reading, I quite appreciate discussing books that I have read with people who have read them once I am done. I recently had a short discussion on Chigozie Obioma’s “The Fishermen” with a friend and we realised that we had picked up different things from the book.

I was drawn into the storyline and themes of the book while he focused more on the style of the writer and whether he had managed to capture the art of African storytelling not writing an African story for a Western audience.

Having noticed the differences in what we found in the book, he pointed out the need to discuss reads with people as it opens up the understanding of the books and offers different perspec- tives.

To do this more often I have always been keen to join a book club. My understanding of book clubs is that they are a group of people who get together to share their interest for literature.

Unfortunately, the one attempt I made at starting a book club failed and I never quite had the motivation to start one again.

Book clubs are important for readers and non-readers alike. They are a platform for one to read more books and access different ideas on the books that have been read.

For those looking to read more but lacking in discipline to do it by themselves, I suggest they start or join a book club. Together everyone achieves more apparently and so that could certainly help the cause. There’d also be added pressure to complete the read as one wouldn’t want to be the only person in the book club who doesn’t know what’s going on.

Harare has a couple of book clubs that I recently came across. The first is being hosted by ISU Collections on May 13 at their premises in Eastlea. Theirs is an “African writers” book club from 10am to 12pm. For those looking to read more on African writers this would be a great book club to join.

I quite like the idea that book clubs can be themed as this presents readers to explore books that otherwise might not have read on their own.

I’m not sure what selection of books ISU Collections has but I definitely think the initiative is worth a look. I’m also unsure how often the book club will be hosted but that depends on how fast the members can consume the literature.

The other book club I found is hosted by Enthuse Mag dubbed The Book Lovers’ Club. According to their Facebook page, where you can find a link to sign up for the club, their book club is “A virtual space for lovers of literature and stimulating discussions.”

The Book Lover’s Club will also be reading books by African writers, most of them Zimbabwean and has a different book for each month of the year which you can purchase from them at a discounted price. The list includes “Purple Hibiscus” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, “Running With My Mother” by Chris Mlalazi and “Not Another Day” by Julius Chingono.

As it is a virtual space, I suppose the discussions will be taking place online or via WhatsApp but I do believe there will be physical meet-ups as well.

For those in Harare, like me, who are looking to have wider discussions about books I suggest you join one of these book clubs or start your own. This applies to any other readers in other parts of the world who are looking to get something more about the books they find hard to put down or hard to understand.