Books by and for independent women

My Three Favourite…Book Club Books

This was originally intended as a feature on the top three books about book clubs, in honour of the first every For Books’ Sake Book Club taking place tonight. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that no one actually writes about book clubs, aside from perpetrators of the Yummy Mummy genre.

So instead, here are  three books for anyone thinking of starting up their own book club. At least a couple of them are bound to crop up at future For Books’ Sake book clubs, and we’re all about your input. So holla back if you have any recommendations of your own!

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A sinister, fictionalisation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s own confinement, The Yellow Wallpaper focuses upon the 19th century medical practice of declaring any strong feelings held by a woman to be a sign of hysteria.

Across both the UK and USA, women were deprived of psychological stimulus, and were warned by their doctors not to read, speak to friends, exercise or indulge in any activity which might excite them. In only sixty pages, Perkins Gilman draws the reader into the world of relentless deprivation experienced by these women.

The book’s unnamed narrator has been instructed by her husband to stay in bed for a few months in order to curb her postpartum melancholy. In an attempt to retain some sense of self she keeps a sporadic, secret, diary in which she charts the decline of her own mental state.

Throughout The Yellow Wallpaper, the reader is aware that the narrator’s “treatment” was regularly prescribed for unhappy women. This awareness leads to a creeping discomfort as the narrator desperately resolves to be a “good wife” and heightens the ongoing themes of anger and frustration.

Despite it’s unsettling tone, The Yellow Wallpaper is perfect fodder for any book club as it is a story that demands celebration. Many women did not survive the psychological injuries experienced by Perkins Gilman, and the fact that she went on to produce such a sinister and influential novel deserves greater recognition.

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

A set of short stories based upon the Grimm fairytales and Disney colonisations we all grew up with, The Bloody Chamber is a fantastic choice for a book club. The last couple of decades have seen Angela Carter hailed as a guiding light of feminist literature; but it is in her short stories that her ability to skew the familiar really takes hold of the reader.

In a similar manner to Carol Ann Duffy‘s The World’s Wife, The Bloody Chamber sees Carter offer a fantastic reinterpretation of a swath of traditional stories. Unlike Duffy, however, Carter does not utilise pop culture, choosing instead to remain within the dark woods or crumbling castles, and to concentrate upon the fantastical and the bitter.

These talents are perfectly illustrated in The Tiger’s Bride, where the transformation wrought by true love sees fur erupt through the heroine’s skin as Beauty becomes the Beast.

There is more to The Bloody Chamber, however, than skillful reinterpretations of the familiar. Carter was a fantastically knowledgeable writer who layered her writing with meditations upon sexuality, the myth of the feminine and the role of women within relationships.

The Bloody Chamber functions as both a series of gleefully ghoulish episodes, and on a deeper level as a profoundly moving commentary upon the lives of women.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Strongly reminiscent of the near-future created by Jeanette Winterson in The Stone Gods, The Hunger Games take place in war-ravaged Panem; a land divided into 12 Districts and ruled over by The Capitol.

Each year a girl and a boy between the ages of twelve and eighteen are chosen to take part in The Hunger Games. Broadcast throughout Panem, the candidates are then let loose to kill each other until the last alive is declared the “winner”.

The novel begins with 16 year-old Katniss volunteering to take her little sister’s place in the games, and finding herself competing against her unacknowledged love, Peeta.

The Hunger Games would have been successful as a straightforward tale of survival but Collins adds another layer by skilfully developing the fame aspect of the games. Prior to entering the arena candidates compete for sponsorship, they are given very dubious makeovers, with a suitably gushing Philip Schofield-type interviewer on hand.

Katniss follows the mold of previous plucky YA heroines like Hermione Granger and Lyra Belacqua; although she is quickly revealed to be a far more damaged and complex character than her forerunners.

Asking a group of readers to commit to a 400+ page book is surely enshrined on a stone tablet somewhere as one of the big Do Nots of book clubbing. The Hunger Games, however, drives a homemade hatchet into the skull of this rule and proceeds to use its skin for warmth. Violent, gripping and extremely accessible, this is a book which commands the readers’ attention.

Which books do you think are missing? What are your recommendations for the next For Books’ Sake Book Club? Tell us in the comments, chime in on the forum, or use the #fbsbookclub hashtag. We’ll be having our first book club at 7pm tonight, so come along or chip in on Twitter.

Beulah Devaney

(Image via alicejamieson’s Flickr photostream)