The Name Game

I am trying to think a name for our reading group. Sort of like the Inklings, an informal discussion group that included C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and other scholars associated with Oxford University who discussed narrative fiction and encouraged fantasy writing between the early 1930s and late 1949.

Because they were writers they called themselves the Inklings. And they were humble scholars thereby, perhaps, having a double entendre to the name Inklings, as in they had only a glimmer of what is going on.

The Inkling name wouldn't fit us because we have no idea what is going on. I guess we could call ourselves the Glimmerless. Or the Inklingness since none of us has written a book...well, I've written a few but no one reads them so Inklingness would still fit, but that name doesn't come rolling off the tongue. So I reject that one.

Since I intruded on the group of three making us a group of four, I thought we might be called the Fourth Wheel but that name does not indicate a group.

Then I discovered that we only discuss theology books. I found out this way: Somewhere I had read that Jimmy Buffet's new book, A Good Life All the Way, made a Best Books of 2017 list.

I thought his new book would interest our discussion group because Jimmy Buffet is:

• An "island escapism" musician with umpteen gold records
• A successful business man with two restaurant chains
• A Broadway script writer
• An author of two children's books
• And--get this--one of eight authors who have reached number one on the New York Times best seller list in both fiction (Tales From Margaritaville) and nonfiction (A Pirate Looks at Fifty).

The other seven?: Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, William Styron, Irving Wallace, Dr. Seuss, Mitch Albom (Mitch who?), and Glen Beck (Glen Beck!). See what you learn when you are looking for a name.

A Good Life All the Way was rejected by our nameless group because Buffet is not a theologian. I guess we could call our group, The Buffetless (another double entendre because we don't have a buffet when we meet...sorry--it's getting late). Or because we are such a dull group, we don't even have a bucket list, how about the Bucketless Readers.

I need to come up with a name that reflects our religious leanings. The Theologians is out. Too prosaic. As is the Seminarians.

The name of our group needs to be catchy. Like the name I have for our weight lifting group of three--the Three Muscleteers. The Four Seasons...no. The Four Aces...no. The Four Down...that might work if we were drinkers, but sadly being (fake) theologians, we are not.

I better quit. This is getting ridiculous. I'll come up with a name in the middle of the night.

Anyway this blog wasn't a total waste. You learned something about Jimmie Buffet that I wager you didn't know. But who is Mitch Albom?