The Book Club Phenomena

By Katie Wu

Back in 2000, Kathy L. Patrick opened a shop in East Texas called Beauty and the Book, with hopes of creating a place where people could gather around her two passions: beauty and books. There were paperbacks and hardcovers on the shelves and hairdressers ready to do your wash and curl.

Soon after that, Patrick founded the shop’s book club, which she called The Pulpwood Queens of East Texas. It began with six strangers and is now one of the largest book clubs in the world, with over 350 chapters nationwide and in eleven countries. The club meets once a month and includes both men and women (the men are referred to as The Timber Guys) who range in age from early twenties to nearly ninety years old.

Needless to say, when Patrick’s group picks a book, it means a significant sales boost for that book. And The Pulpwood Queens of East Texas is but one part of a phenomenon that has become, according to some, the lifeblood of the book business. Book clubs can singlehandedly catapult a book from obscurity to thousands of readers, using the age-old meritocracy of word of mouth. Book clubs have kept books like Jeannette Walls’ Glass Castles and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, on bestseller lists for years. Read the full piece at McSweeney’s.