This year has me rekindling my love for books and reading. Kindle in hand, I am off to conquer my 2014 GoodReads challenge of reading 24 books this year. I’m off to a good start with four books down -Wicked in January, I Wish They Taught Money in Highschool and The Cuckoo’s Calling in February, and Fahreheit 451 in March. I’m also more than halfway done with The Lover’s Dictionary, and also with Losing It. The best part about reading, now, for me is my book club, as dorky as that may sound. It’s actually because of the book club that I’m getting to read all these different books.
The SBC and our BOMs
Is it just me, or am I sounding dorkier by the minute? SBC or Secret Book Club is, well, what our book club is called. Some friends of mine from high school started the club with a few other batch mates of theirs, and when I saw them talking about it on Twitter, I kinda invited myself to join. See, not only do I love to read, I like discussing the books I’m reading with other people too. MrC and I, for instance, can talk for hours about George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books. We also talked about The Hunger Games Trilogy and The Millennium Trilogy during and after reading all of the books. I’m lucky to have married someone who is the same brand of dork as I am.
Then came SBC, and all of a sudden I was surrounded by other ladies who are the same brand of dork as I am, too. I absolutely love it. We chat endlessly on WhatsApp about our current reads and what books to check out next, we swoon over book lists and hard bound editions, and a couple of us have already declared that we want George RR Martin to be our lolo. Sorry, SBC girls for calling you dorks, but, well…
Moving on. A BOM or Book of the Month is basically what the members of the club are required to read. For now, since we’re still a small group, we take turns suggesting new books. We’ve been assigning two books a month and we’ve been able to get by so far, which is perfect because that’s the same reading target I set for myself in GoodReads. I got to suggest a book for this April, and I’m a little ashamed to admit that I was the one who recommended Losing It. Haha! It was part of the reading list for the fiction writing class I joined earlier in the year, but I never got around to reading it. So I figured I’d suggest it as a BOM, and so far it’s gotten okay feedback from the others, so yay!
Happy hour book discussions (and gossip sessions)
We agreed to meet once a month in the Alabang area, since we are all from the south. Our first session happened earlier in March at Bugsy’s in Westgate. I actually didn’t plan on staying long, but believe it or not, Joei, Lar and I ended up hanging out until way past midnight.
Photo belongs to Joei. Click on it to read her post about SBC.
Lar and I are both mommies, and I think we enjoyed being among adults and talking about random things that evening. Joei is a lawyer and an amazing blogger. Her blog, Joei and Me is actually on the list of my favorite blogs from one of my Sunday Sevens. Russ is a marketing master, and one of my favorite writing clients of the moment (hehe, thanks, Russ). Iza is a coach at Futbol Funatics, where Little MrC is enrolled for the summer. Go check them out! Balot, who wasn’t able to join is that evening, blogs over at I Am Corporate Junkie.
Over the last couple of weeks, our group has grown and now includes my friendly friends and mom-bloggers, Michelle, Janice, Mille and Toni. My cousin Reena has also recently joined, as well as Joei’s friend, Koryn, and Iza’s friend, Yam. and So yes, we are very open to accepting new members, and if any of you would like to join the fun, send me a message on Facebook or email me at mrspcuyugan@gmail.com. We meet in the south, though, and of course we’d love to have you guys from the north come and visit our nice little neighborhood. Would you like to go clubbing with me?
I’m going back to reading now! What are you reading today?
The Secret Book Club is a great way to gain new friends and expresss your passion in reading!
Now this seems to be a lot of fun! 🙂
Wow. As a student, book lover and blogger, I think I also need to join a club. I honestly enjoy reading but because I`m in college, I prefer to read my textbooks first (which is continuous). That`s why I don`t have time to read story books nowadays.
My Goodreads Challenge is to read 50 books this year and I’ve only read 18 so far! Haha! I’m happy to be part of the book club too. I just hope that we’ll be able to set up another soon so that I can meet the others already.
I think having a discussion group is really very enlightening and at the same time you have a support system.
as much as i want to join your club, but im afraid my sched it tight, nevertheless this is worth joining for. thanks!
Wow!! I want to join your club too!! I haven’t read anything in paper form its always in E-Book.
I’ve never been part of a super seious book club but this sounds like a cool pressure to finish books faster.
I will definately go clubing with you cos it’s rocks. This no ordinary clubing, its brains club. Love the reading club.
I’m glad that you’re a bookworm too and with friends to share with. Hopefully, I love reading too, and writing novels. It’s just right now, quite busy for blogging.
Yay!!! So happy to be part of the club! Still reading the book Idiot.. 🙁 I will try and finish it this week.. Also, I am looking forward to the next happy hour book discussions! 🙂 Thanks for adding me up! 🙂
hmm. this club is interesting, I love reading books as well even when I was a teenager but because I worked in a fast food restaurant and I supported myself I am not able to buy and read books. but now, with my android phone, I can download e-books so I can read again.
I want to join you guys!!! 🙂
Game, I’m gonna add you na sa FB group!
I want to join your book club! I’m looking for a club to join so I’d be motivated to read more fiction books 🙂 Alabang is too far from me though 🙁 Any plans on opening a chapter nearer Taguig? (no pun intended!)
You can join, Bituin! We mostly make chika over Facebook, then meet once a month. If you can’t come to the meet-ups, it’s no bige. But of course we’d love it if we could one day meet you in person. So, are you in? 🙂
Count me in! Will add you on FB 🙂
Oh how lucky you are to be part of a book club! I’m a huge fan of Song of fire and ice (I know every single change they’ve made in the tv adaptation) and hunger games was the very first set of books i read when i revived my reading habit a couple of years ago (i thought the first book was awesome but thought the next two failed to excite as much AND I hate the movie)….
anyway, i haven’t read much lately, never seem to have the time. I should really do so since i’ve downloaded so many books in my kindle. but i can’t go to the south…not yet anyway…sigh…..oh well….
When you’re ready, I would totally love for you to join our club, May! 😀