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About Book Circle

Book Circle is a session in which you share your thoughts about a book with your friends and spread the joy of reading. In the process, you will be able to enhance your reading skills and examine different perspectives other than your own.

Structure

Participants will be divided into groups of six or seven with each group being assigned a book to read. Every group member will take on a role. There will be in total six roles, namely

Student assessor:

Take note of the names of your group members in their various roles.

Submit an assessment or reflection at the end of the session.

Discussion director:

Start by inviting the other roles to first contribute their prepared portions.

Steer and propel the discussion, possibly with some "FAT" (general) questions e.g.

"What do you like about the book?"

"What was going through your mind as you were reading?"

"What part of the reading really caught your attention?"

Listen and facilitate the overall discussion.

You should prepare at least 5 or more "FAT" questions.

Summarizer/illustrator: 

Give a brief summary of the key points in the plot. Focus on the plot, main characters and setting. You can make use of not only words but also diagrams or mindmaps to bring across the ideas.

Your presentation should last at least 5 minutes.

Biographer:

Research the writer's life and experiences and their impact on his writing style, content etc.

Your presentation should last at least 5 minutes.

Passage/Word master:

Pick from the book some words or passages that are particularly interesting/ puzzling/ intriguing/ important (perhaps simply because they are repeated many times by the author).

You should have at least 10 words or phrases with a simple explanation each as to why you have chosen them.

Connector:

Link the reading to your own experiences. Find connections between the book and the world outside e.g.

Is partnership between the medical and religious communities sometimes necessary for progress today, as it was in the book?

Preparation Tips

Always make notes as you read. Jot down the things going through your mind. Try to analyze the theme, characters and the overall structure of the book. Don't be afraid to ask yourself tough questions because they may lead you to brilliant insights. Make comparisons to other books that the author has written or to other authors as well.

Books for this activity

In case you are interested to know what the other groups are reading, here is the list of titles for the Book Circle:

His Brother's Keeper : A Story from the Edge of Medicine

Author: Jonathan Weiner

This book is about a young entrepreneur who gambles on the risky science of gene therapy to try to save his brother who is suffering from ALS.

Uncle Tungsten : Memories of a Chemical Boyhood

Author: Oliver Sacks

This is an autobiography of the author's childhood and the inspiration he drew from his uncle who manufactured light bulbs with tungsten filaments.

The Ghost Map : The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic

Author: Steven Johnson

This is a recount of the outbreak of cholera in nineteenth-century London, and how it changed cities, science and the modern world.

The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat

Author: Oliver Sacks

Here's another book by renowned neurologist, Sir Sacks. It is a collection of some of his clinical tales. The title of the book comes from the case study of a man with visual agnosia.

Surely, You're Joking, Mr Feynman!

Author: Richard Feynman

This is a collection of interesting and sometimes bizarre anecdotes of the author, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Just an interesting point to note, one of the Nobel Laureates for our forum, Dr. Douglas D. Osheroff, was the author's student back in Caltech!