Chasing Curiosity, Community, and Connection

How many book clubs is too many? Asking for a friend.

Books have been my escape, my comfort, a pathway to growth, and a lifelong connector. There is nothing better than picking up a book that people are universally loving and being able to wax poetic about it—digging into the words, the characters, searching for clues about what’s to come. That shared excitement feels electric, like being in a concert arena, tens of thousands of voices belting out the same song in perfect harmony. It’s church. And my version of church—the place where I feel the most connection, the most alive—is built around the things we mutually love. So often, for me, that’s books.

Naturally, if I want to meet people, deepen relationships, or—god forbid—actually make a friend (why is that so difficult as an adult?), I turn to book clubs. What makes a good book club? Opinions run strong here, and I have too many because I’ve been in several thousand. Some have been transformative. Some have made me question humanity.

Take, for example, the book club we created at the bank where I used to work. It started earnestly enough—intelligent discussions, well-prepared members—but we eventually imposed a tax on those who didn’t read the book. (Tell me you worked in finance without telling me you worked in finance.) The tax? You had to bring a bottle of wine. A sound policy, in theory. In practice? It fast-tracked us from a book club to a full-blown wine club. At a certain point, we weren’t so much discussing literature as we were debating who would be the next person to go grab another bottle of Pinot Noir from the kitchen. I regret nothing. I loved those women, I needed those women, and frankly, when I realized capital markets was not for me, they made going into work every day tolerable.

When my husband and I moved to Connecticut, we knew absolutely no one. Starting over as an adult is weirdly humbling, like being the new kid at school, but worse because there’s no structured lunchroom hierarchy to infiltrate. My solution? Join three book clubs simultaneously:

1. A boozy club for women in their 20s and 30s.

2. A neighborhood club for moms whose kids had all moved out.

3. A co-ed club of septuagenarians (I couldn’t even begin to tell you how I stumbled into this one).

The first club should have been perfect. But most of the women were younger than me, drank less than me (strike one), and had objectively terrible taste in books (strike two). There is no earthly reason we needed to read Big Little Lies ten years after it came out and after two seasons of the show. Then, in what turned out to be my last meeting (unbeknownst to me at the time), forty women showed up to a small bar. FORTY. Are we kidding? Have you ever tried to have a meaningful conversation in a crowd that size? People were practically climbing over tables just to get a word in (jk, it wasn’t Mean Girls). At one point, I’m pretty sure I was in a discussion about three different books at once. That was my cue to leave.

The second club came about after my lovely (and, let’s be honest, slightly pitying) neighbor invited me. After a full year of living next door to each other, she must have finally thought, “Oh, new people live in that house? Cool.” We struck up a conversation over our barking dogs, and she extended the invite. At the time, I jumped at it because, frankly, I was in a bad place mentally. But also, my brain was screaming, Target audience for your business! Spoiler: I do not mix business with my book opinions, so this was objectively terrible decision-making on my part. The women, however, were fantastic. Smart. Funny. Occasionally talked about the book. And, best of all, they had read so many crime novels that they could detail, step by step, how to bury a husband and get away with it. That is the kind of information I want in my back pocket. For research purposes, of course. (Don’t worry, huzz!)

The third book club, though? My favorite. It was eclectic. They read across genres and time periods. Because it was co-ed and the average member was decades older than me, it was brimming with knowledge and opinions that challenged me and made me better. I was in awe of them—of how certain they were about who they were, how little they cared about performing for others, and how deeply they valued growth and community. That energy? I need it in my life.

That’s also when something clicked for me.

When my husband and I were making ~ the baby decision ~, we spent a long time thinking about what happiness would look like for us. What kind of life did we want to build? And the answer, for both of us, was clear: community. A multi-generational, deeply connected, chosen family. We both love to read. We’re both endlessly curious. And when I sat in that book club, listening to people decades ahead of me still searching, still learning, still making space for each other—it felt like I had found a piece of the life we were trying to create.

If you made it this far, you might be wondering what the actual point of all this is. And honestly, same.

But here’s what I think I’m trying to say: curiosity, community, and connection are what make a book club great. Maybe a little obsession, too, but that didn’t fit as neatly into my catchphrase.

That’s what we’re doing here, folks. We’re chasing all of them.

Because at the end of the day, books aren’t just about the stories themselves. They’re about who we are when we read them. They’re about the people we become through the ideas we absorb, the conversations we have, the connections we make over a shared love of something bigger than ourselves. They help us understand each other. They give us language for things we didn’t know how to articulate before.

And book clubs? They’re a microcosm of what I want from life. A space where you can show up as you are—whether that’s tipsy and unprepared, armed with way too many opinions, or just in desperate need of a night away from your own spiraling thoughts. A place where people keep coming back for each other, not just for the books.

That’s why I love them. That’s why I chase them. And that’s why, in one way or another, I’ll probably never stop joining them.

Whether you’re here for the books, the wine, or just the occasional rant about someone’s questionable taste in thrillers—you belong. We all do.

Now, let’s talk about what we’re reading. Let me know in the comments!

Book and wine pairing

Buckle up and grab some table wine (yep, no fancy rec this week) because we need to talk about BookTok, Bookstagram, and the problem of viral books.

Upon the enthusiastic recommendation of the lovely Bookstagram community (you can find me at @bbcorcswrites), I picked up Metal Slinger and Spark of the Everflame this week. Reader, I devoured them—didn’t blink, didn’t breathe, fully ignored my responsibilities. And yet… neither was a five-star read. One had a twist ending that broke the internet (and my brain—I feel unwell), and the other featured a slow-burn romance so torturous it still wasn’t resolved after two whole books. TWO. That’s not a slow burn; that’s a hostage situation.

So, what wine pairs with books like these? House wine. Drinkable, enjoyable, but not something you’d necessarily recommend to a friend with enthusiasm.

And that, dear reader, is where my love-hate relationship with viral books begins.

I love what BookTok and Bookstagram do for indie authors, truly. The visibility, the sheer excitement, the ability to turn an under-the-radar book into a bestseller overnight—it’s incredible. But what I don’t love is how these platforms seem to promote the same kind of book over and over. Books that don’t make you think. Books that don’t keep you up at night piecing together clues, obsessing over hidden meanings. Books that don’t have real political stakes or depth, or anything that lingers after the last page.

They are, for lack of a better term, table wine books. Mass-produced. Easily consumed. Designed for maximum enjoyment but minimal aftertaste.

And sometimes, I struggle with that. I don’t want to tumble down a reading rabbit hole that makes me question my intelligence. I want books that challenge me, too! Books that are complex, weird, a little unhinged. But in today’s dumpster fire world (cue Elmo meme), I also get why readers crave absolute escapism. Instead of turning to Bravo, they’re turning to house wine books.

Is that so bad? Probably not. But maybe, just maybe, it’s time we order something off the reserve list every once in a while.

What I’ve been enjoying recently

Punching in a Dream by The Naked and Famous | Spark of the Everflame by Penn Cole & Metal Slinger by Rachel Schneider| Little Weirds by Jenny Slate & The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

Writing update

YAY! I received a Revise & Resubmit this week from an agent I matched with in a BlueSky pitch fest. Her feedback, while largely spot on, also made me feel some kind of way. Why is it that I focus on the criticism rather than the positives? The sheer fact she sees how amazing Susie Sweetheart can be is huge! The fact she called it well-written and laugh-out-loud funny? Could I want anything more? NO! But I simmered a bit on the adjective “interesting.” What does that word even mean?! Enjoyable? No, I want you to use inhalable, unputdownable. Sheesh!

Anyway, it’s good news so I’ll probably hole up this weekend to work on that. Yet, at first it destabilized me… my brain froze. I couldn’t even work on McMurder which is still only 2 pesky chapters in. So I did the rational thing, of course (obviously!), and brushed of the dust of the YA fantasy I wrote years ago and haven’t even looked at in 2 years… and now I’m elbows deep in a re-org and a re-write.

Send help.

xx,
bb