Monday Nighters, who like variety, delve into Camus' `The Plague'

Book club

Howard Live

An interview with Nancy Joy, a founding member of the Monday Night Book Club.

What book are members reading this month? We're reading "The Plague" by Albert Camus.

Which books have members liked? Well, we like all our books. We read a variety. We read nonfiction, current fiction and classics. We just read "Isaac's Storm" by Eric Larson. That's nonfiction. It's about the worst hurricane ever, in 1900. It killed between 6,000 and 10,000 people. We did a memoir this year, "All Over but the Shoutin'" by Rick Bragg. And we're going to do a Shakespeare play in December. We're also going to read "Frankenstein" for Halloween.

How many members does the club have? We have seven, and we meet at each other's houses.

How do club members decide what the next book of the month will be? We sit down in December, and we suggest different books. Whoever suggested the book is the leader [that month]. We have very diverse opinions. Some people take notes on the book and read them back to us. In Rick Bragg's book, "All Over but the Shoutin'," for instance, some people saw it as a success story because he came from poverty and won a Pulitzer Prize and he bought his mother a house with cash, but other people thought it was bittersweet because he never could make a commitment to a woman and have children. Some people in the club are more inclined to see hidden meanings or allegories in the book, and others of us aren't.