by Jane Hendry

Created on: July 29, 2009

Book club - relaxing intellectual escapism

Most commonly started by ladies, book clubs have always been a great excuse to get together on a regular basis and put the world to rights. However, with life getting in the way, they have often veered away from books almost entirely, to become an outlet for the trials and tribulations of work, marriage and family life. It seems that there is almost no therapy quite like gathering together, once a month, to vent our stresses and relive our favourite times, with other women who are going through similar life stages and experiencing many of the same difficulties and triumphs in life.

That's not to say that the books are no longer available or enjoyed, merely that they have become a sideline to the daily grind. And yet books have so much to offer in the quest for calm and tranquillity in this fast paced world we live in. Books have the potential to remove us completely from all the things that command our attention during the day, cause stress and make us forget to unwind.

Knowledge abounds in non-fiction tomes, shelves in book shops are groaning under the wisdom of gurus of health, wealth and spirituality, to help us better our well being, lifestyles and sense of who we are. Complete escapism from the ups and downs of our own lives flows from the pages of Jody Piccoult or Dan Brown. Books open up a road un-travelled, a pathway to new ideas and dreams, a way out just for a while. In the high speed, high tech, high stress world we live in, what could be a better way to unwind than by picking up a book with real pages, that you can touch, hold and feel, leaving technology far behind and getting lost in the words, the knowledge, the story?

Yes, I hear you say, I can read, and I do. But why do I have to join a book club to enjoy a book? You don't, but here's why you might want to:

Starting or becoming part of a book club offers the opportunity to gather together with like minded women, from many different walks of life, where you get to talk about things other than the latest headlines, home crisis or work disaster. A book club gives you the chance to leave your stresses at the door and venture into a world where you'll learn about life, through books, from someone else's point of view. Removing ourselves from our daily stresses is a great way to recoup the emotional, physical and mental energy that helps us to cope with all the things, good and bad, that life throws our way. Ideally we would get away once

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