What are you reading?

So this past week I happened to mention to a friend that I was reading Augustine’s Confessions. This isn’t a normal read for me, but after reading a couple brief Church histories, I thought I would challenge myself and read some of the primary sources. Anyway, upon mentioning that I was slowly making my way through said book, I was told that there is a book club in Toronto currently reading Confessions and was asked if I’d like to come along.

I went along to book club on Sunday evening. It was simultaneously exciting and daunting. All I knew was the address and what time it started on Sunday evening. When I had made it to the address I was given, I rang the doorbell. Whilst waiting for someone to answer, I quickly rehearsed in my mind my “opening line”—‘Hi I’m a friend of Paul’s. I’m here for the book club’—as you do. Well, when the door opened, I blurted out the above only to be received by a blank stare; worst case scenario!

Just as an aside: I think the reason I find knocking on ‘random’ doors daunting is that I, for some reason, fear that there is the slightest chance I’ve got the wrong door. Not that that would be the end of the world.

Anyway, after a brief second, the woman who answered the door realised what I was after and directed me to a door round back. Following her directions I went along and found the entrance to the apartment upstairs.

Book Club is hosted by an American couple named Brian and Meg. They’re up in Toronto for Brian’s PhD and are a really nice couple. In fact, they remind me of so many couples I knew that came over to Durham for PhDs. There was a good mix of people at Book Club, with the majority of the guys all studying at the PhD level, and mostly arts subjects. This made for some pretty good discussion—it was miles above your Oprah’s book club level—albeit quite intimidating for a science student like myself. The fact that I hadn’t yet read the chapter for that week might also have something to do with that.

All in all, it was a great night, and I’m glad I found this group of people. I’m definitely going to go regularly in future as I need some motivation to get me to finish reading the books I start.

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I’ve decided to run a competition over the next four blog posts. Just comment answering the question below. Winner will be judged by random selection to win something Canadian posted to your door!

What are you currently reading and how is it going?