Book Club: The Mysterious Reading Society

You know how sometimes, you need a push from other friends to read the books that you normally don’t read, even if you and your friends read the same kind of books anyway?

This is how The Mysterious Reading Society started.

The Mysterious Reading Society (TMRS) is a book club started by six friends in 2011. The members have been friends for several years, and they usually read YA books, but they decided to form a book club so they can expand their reading experience and discover new books from other genres. Their name was inspired by The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, which they thought fit their private reading group.

The Mysterious Reading Society during their first discussion

TMRS has monthly book discussions where they choose a book to read based on a pre-selected list of genres. They start reading at the beginning of the month and meet later to discuss. Their discussions are usually low-key and informal, with the book taking the center stage every time they meet.

The book club is relatively young, but they have several memorable experiences:

• Their first face-to-face discussion was memorable with it being the first. They discussed Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, and this discussion was their starting point where they could get the hang of the process.
• In January 2012, they discussed Moondogs by Alexander Yates for the General Fiction category.  Their discussion leader emailed the author and got him to send questions he would like to ask the readers of the book.
• When they discussed Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in March 2012, they also made a point to watch the movie adaptation and included it in the discussion.

The Mysterious Reading Society usually hangs out in their own Goodreads homepage, but as of now they are not yet accepting new members. However, they are considering opening their discussions to other book lovers and are in the process of finalizing the transition. You can see their 2012 book list below:

• January 2012:  General Fiction – Moondogs by Alexander Yates
• February 2012:  Children’s Literature – The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
• March 2012:  Books Turned Into Movies – Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• April 2012:  Mystery – The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
• May 2012:  Classics – Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
• June 2012:  Science Fiction – Cinder by Marissa Meyer
• July 2012:  Romance/Chick Lit. – Austenland by Shannon Hale
• August 2012:  Philippine Literature – Smaller and Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan
• September 2012:  Epic Fantasy – Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
• October 2012:  Biographies – no book chosen yet
• November 2012:  Young Adult – The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• December 2012:  Graphic Novels – no book chosen yet

But if you want to see the group in action, they will be at hosting a book discussion during the afternoon activities of United We Read: the 2nd Filipino ReaderCon on August 18, 2012 at the Filipinas Heritage Library. The Mysterious Reading Society will be discussing 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James and we’re sure it will be a very interesting discussion! They will also have Kate Evangelista, author of YA Paranormal Romance Taste as their guest panelist for their discussion.

Much thanks to MeAnn from The Girl Who Read and Other Stories for telling us about their book club! :)