What do you think of when you read or hear the phrase 'book club'? Does it conjure notions of old ladies sitting around a living room, sipping tea and chattering while, in theory, discussing a book's themes and characters?
The hipsters among us may scoff, but book clubs have definitely emerged from the living rooms out into the media-obsessed mainstream. Two of the most famous book clubs brought them to television - of course we're speaking of Oprah's Book Club and the Richard & Judy Book Club. Then there was the Channel 4 sitcom (The Book Group) and the film (The Jane Austen Book Club).
While literary club nights have always been the domain of the cultural cognoscenti, it's not hard to see that book clubs are starting to come into their own with the younger generations - the latest book club we want to champion is JP's Book Club at Joseph Pearce in Edinburgh. Our spies tell us that club organiser Stephi has set up a really exciting book club - next month's selection is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun. (And how could we not mention our Life of Pi readalong in August?)
