& Co : Blokes Book Club
He is a bloke, a librarian, and a book lover. Mark Caunter never belonged to a book club before. Now, he is running one, just for men.
He is a bloke, a librarian, and a book lover. Mark Caunter never belonged to a book club before. Now, he is running one, just for men.
Mark was plunged into the deep end last year after he was asked to facilitate a one-off Blokes Book Club, as a collaboration between the library’s innovation team and Hamilton Book Month. One of Mark’s colleagues thought he would be the perfect person to facilitate the group. Considering it is still going to this day, picking Mark for the role looks like it was a good decision.
This decision has turned out well for Mark
too, as he now regularly gets to talk about one of his favourite things in
life, books.
“I’ve loved books since I was a kid, I get into another world.”
Blokes Book Club (BBC for short) meets on
the second Wednesday of each month, usually at the Hamilton Central Library. It
is comprised of six core members, and new members are always welcomed. Its male
only policy makes it a vivid outlier when compared to more gender normative
book clubs.
This challenge to the stereotype gives the
men of BBC an outlet to talk about the books in their lives, something they
might not have felt comfortable doing in more traditional clubs.
BBC members get to bring their own books.
Authors Stanley J Weyman, Bernd Heinrich and Christopher Duffy are some of
Mark’s personal favourites.
The group sometimes roll a 20-sided dice to
decide what genres will be talked about. Westerns was the first genre chosen,
much to the dismay of members. Although not a favourite, Mark conceded the
unpopular topic provided a good catalyst for conversation.
“We had a really good discussion about what we did and didn’t like about them.”
Mark has been a heritage librarian for the
past 17 years. But it was not until BBC that he has been able to regularly talk
about the books in his life.
“In a history book, I am imagining what it must have been like in that time period, to me, it’s like time travel.”
“A lot of books I purchase are like friends to me… they’re like mementos of where I’ve been” Mark said. He can tell you where he bought a book and what he was doing at the time.
Mark’s relationship with books is a mixture
of escapism, romanticism and personal record keeping. These ideas, and those of
the other members, can all be explored and even developed within the Book Club.
It is clear that BBC has enriched, and has
been enriched by, Mark’s personal love for books.
