A milestone at my book club

 My book club has been meeting for nearly 15 years. There are seven of us, and every few months, we get together, eat good food, and talk about a good book.

We’re reading our 50th book in June.

That’s certainly something to celebrate. But an even more monumental event occurred last Saturday at our most recent meeting.

For the first time ever, the majority of book club members read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in electronic form.

Yep. Four of us read the book on the Kindle (three Kindle Keyboards and one Kindle Touch) and one listened to the book on Audible.com. That left just two who read the book in paper.

“This is a milestone!” one member said. She then spent a few minutes taking a picture (above) and updating her Facebook status.

I’m happy to report that complete mayhem did not ensue. We did not have a major argument or a constitutional crisis. I will say, however, that the Pro-Paper Members made it known when the Pro-Kindle Members grabbed paper copies to check out the back of the book or to flip through the pages to find a good scene.

One frustrated Pro-Paper member admonished the majority. “It even has a nice cover!” she said.

Overall, the quality of the discussion did not decrease. It was as animated as ever. But what would have happened if someone wanted to engage us in a close analysis of a specific passage? (No, that doesn’t happen often!)

We’ll have to wait and see if this trend continues — and if so, how it changes the nature of the book club. I’ll make sure to keep you posted.