Is Your Book Club Depressing You?

Is your book group stuck in a muck of depressing reads? Such is the question that contributor Luanne Bradley posed in a recent article for EcoSalon entitled "From Chick Lit to Victim Books: Problems with the Woman’s Book Club". 

…pleasure has become elusive to the women’s book group, the reading less an armchair cruise than an academic grind. The inevitable prerequisite is the agreed-upon selections must be meaty enough to spark evocative feedback for eloquent sharing round the coffee table. As a result, our picks are highly wrought works of historic, political or cultural significance perpetually mired in sadness. Or, as a fellow member recently commiserated, “Can’t we move on from the holocaust and women in pain?”

Well, that got me thinking about my own book club and the books we have selected over the past couple of years. I have to admit, we have read our share of holocaust tales, dysfunctional family sagas and downtrodden women stories. Surely there must be some discuss-able funny books out there?  

This past summer, More magazine listed "20 Memoirs That Will Make You LOL".  Most of these titles put a funny face on past teenage angst, body image issues, relationship blunders, substance abuse or general life observations punctuated with a healthy dose of snarkiness. Help! What is your book club reading for fun...or is that an oxymoron?