Literary feuds to fiction: How Paige Nick's book club became her muse

News24

13-05-2025

He's meant to be telling us about her new book, but Paige Nick keeps getting distracted and talking about other authors' books – Jim Crace, Rachel Joyce, Margaret Atwood, all the famous names that peek out from the multiple bookshelves in her beautiful Cape Town home.
You get the sense that she could happily talk about books all day. Luckily she can if she really wants to because there are thousands of people who share her passion on the vibrant book club she runs on Facebook.
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The Good Book Appreciation Society began as a private club of seven – just Paige and six of her colleagues at an advertising agency where she worked as a copywriter.
But word of the virtual community soon got out and complete strangers started asking to join. Today the membership stands at more than 23 000.
It's a cosy little corner of the internet where people who love reading can write reviews and share their opinions about the books they're reading.
But although it's mostly friendly, things can sometimes turn nasty – and that's when Paige has to step in and mediate.
'There are certain trigger subjects,' Paige says. 'If anybody mentions a book about Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Jordan Peterson, anything about Palestine or Israel, books about the holocaust, it can quickly escalate, and people can get hurt.'
Then there are also what she refers to as 'the Marmite books' – these include Delia Owens' Where the Crawdads Sing, Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.
'People either love them or hate them,' Paige explains.
Which makes for often heated debate. Authors can also sometimes take it badly when members of the group make negative comments about their books.
'There was a review of a South African book on the page and I got a call from the author's publicist who said everyone was very upset about it. And I also got some negative feedback from the author herself.
I tried to explain that I didn't think it was such a bad review and that it was preferable to nobody even being aware of the book's existence on the shelves.'
It's these kinds of difficult interactions that inspired Paige's latest novel, Book People.
It revolves around Norma Jacobs, an ex-South African living in London who runs an online book club. She has her hands full dealing with an unhinged author, Harry Shields, who completely loses the plot after people start posting negative things about his books on the group.
In between this, Norma is trying to break free from a bad relationship, has written a book that she doesn't have the courage to show anyone and at the age of 42 has made the bold decision to ditch her career as an accountant to become a publishing intern and part-time bookshop assistant.
All of this is ripe for comedy. Paige, whose previous novels include Unpresidented, Dutch Courage and Death by Carbs, has a real knack for crafting witty dialogue and the book is full of laugh-out-loud moments.
She hopes that her readers will have as much fun reading it as she had writing it.
'It's about the world and publishing and social media but most of all it's a love letter to The Good Book Appreciation Society,' Paige says.