What The Friday etc brought to mind is how many book are out there that have as their central theme, a group of people brought together by a hobby. It's an obvious framework to hang your story from - you have the conflicts and new friendships / relationships that come from bringing together different people. You have the hobby itself and the parallels that can be drawn between the hobby and life. You have the usually mysterious teacher or leader of the group, who has problems of her own that the writer hints at early on.
I remember reading Evening Class by Maeve Binchy, about a group of very random people who take an Italian class. This was actually an entertaining read, but it does follow the formula above. Then I remember a Danish film by director Lone Sherfig which was based on this novel. Italian for Beginners is a very sweet and eccentric film. Apparently she was the first female director to use Dogma techniques. Anyway, then there's How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto which I read years ago, and, as the title subtly suggests, it's about quilt making and there's a group of women who get together...I think it might have been good but images of Winona Ryder in the film version are getting in my head and making me uneasy.
The Jane Austen Book Group by Karen Joy Fowler also fits nicely into our hobby-group category. I remember it as reasonable quality CL (chick lit), not least because it caused me to pick up an Ursula K Le Guin novel, The Left Hand of Darkness (which does not in any way fit into the category of hobby-group-CL!). I might not have been inspired to re-read any Austen (I tried as a teen, but didn't greatly enjoy it) but I did discover one of the greatest sci-fi / fantasy writers.
Surely there must be more books that fit into HGCL (gettin' lazy). A group of teen-hoodie-girls learning to bake? An allotment society? A scrabble syndicate? A choral club?
