For the love of books: Book clubs enjoying resurgence
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Emma Johnston, left, of Hickory and Nancy Marshall, of Cecil, are two of the longest-serving members of Heritage Public Library’s book club, founded in 2000. The duo curates a varied book list and leads lively discussions inside the library every month.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Like Uniontown Public Library, the Andrew Carnegie Free Library in Carnegie hosts a senior book club every month for older adults to exchange ideas and socialize. Folks are welcome to arrive early or stay late and lose themselves in the wonderful world of library books.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Brittany Ardeno, right, of Washington, joins in lively discussion of February’s read with her Chartiers-Houston Community Library book club, including member Rebecca Robertson, left, also of Washington. The club meets the last Tuesday of every month.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Alissa Horton, right, of Chartiers shares her thoughts on February’s selection at the Chartiers-Houston Community Library book club meeting Feb. 21 while Diana St. Cyr, of Washington, listens with a smile.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Chartiers-Houston Community Library holds copies of next month’s read at the circulation desk, so book club members can check out that title on their way home from discussion. In February, the group read “Sweetness of Water.”
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
There’s a club for readers of every genre. Local libraries host monthly book clubs whose lists include everything from thrillers to historical nonfiction to magical realism.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Leslie Yoder leads members of Chartiers-Houston Community Library’s monthly book club in discussion, a club she feels is so important. “These are works of literature. They’re works of art. You have to look at them that way,” Yoder said.
Evening falls and sunset fades, but inside the Eva K. Bowlby Library, men and women gather for illuminating discussion during Book Club, held the second Thursday of each month.
“Almost everybody in our book club is a great book lover. At the same time, they want to socialize,” said Dottie Doman, who coordinates the monthly meetings. “We have about 15 members. We’re all kind of friends by now. From 4:30 to 5 we have a social hour where we just talk, catch up with people, then we start discussing the book from 5 to 6.”
During Book Club, folks ranging in age from early 30s to 50-plus share their favorite passages, wonder aloud about plot devices and get to the heart of a book – or try to, at least. While discussions can get heated, they remain polite because, above all else, the group is a collection of book lovers in the company of others as passionate as they about turning pages and drinking in ideas.
“We all want to share our views and our sort of emotions that come out of reading books,” Doman said.
Doman curates the reading list – she’s got titles planned through August – and the Eva K. Bowlby Library orders copies through the Waggin inter-library network.
There’s no genre theme to the Eva K. Bowlby Book Club.
“We’re very eclectic about what we read,” Doman said. “We’ve read books about giraffes, we’ve read books about the Dust Bowl, we’ve read books about Hitler’s Germany. It’s a way to get some exposure to things you wouldn’t normally have read.”
Exposure to new ideas is the tie that binds 21st century book clubs to gatherings of yore. The book club’s origin story is as lovely as a classic, and begins in the 1600s, when women gathered after church to discuss that day’s sermon or the Bible.
As men’s philosophy and science clubs gained steam in the late 18th century – Benjamin Franklin founded the literary society Junto in 1727 – women sought spaces in which to share their own ideas on politics, morals and current events.
Hannah Adams, America’s first working female author, joined a reading circle in Medfield, Mass., in the late 1760s. Ladies read and discussed belles lettres, or aesthetic essays, on literary and art criticism, and shared and critiqued their own writings.
Those ladies clubs changed with the times, and book clubs have surged in popularity over the last decade. Most everyone has heard of Oprah’s Book Club; in the last few years, celebrity readers like Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Jessica Parker and Emma Roberts have launched their own groups.
Sure, pop culture oft portrays book clubs as a group of wine-drinking women discussing life and literature with a side of charcuterie, but in actuality, most local book clubs are structured similarly to the one at Bowlby.
A core group of avid historical nonfiction readers spends the last Tuesday of each month discussing the world at Chartiers-Houston Community Library, where Leslie Yoder leads thought-provoking discussions.
“I try to keep it structured, but not formal,” said Yoder. “People need to be able to talk about the book that they have read in a free, open space and either agree or disagree. We get into spirited discussions. It’s a free-flowing discussion.”
When Yoder took over the book club years ago, it was, more or less, a mystery book club, she said. Over time membership fell and Yoder gave the club a makeover, offering historical nonfiction titles from all time periods.
“We’ve picked up an entirely new crew of people,” Yoder said. “If you’re able to make it, great, we want to see you. It’s open-ended.”
The book list is a month-to-month thing, and following the discussion meeting, next month’s read is available for checkout at the circulation desk. Yoder said the club offers attendees new perspective on a subject, which facilitates personal growth.
She’s delighted at her club’s recent growth; an average of six to 10 people attend each month’s discussion.
“This is so important to me. This proves the liberal arts and humanities are not dead,” Yoder said. “I think it shows that books are still important.”
Books are incredibly important to the six women who make up Heritage Public Library’s club. Every month, ladies from McDonald and surrounding areas gather for stimulating conversation led by Emma Johnston and Nancy Marshall.
Johnston is the longest-serving member of this iteration of the library’s book club, founded in 2000.
“I have 18 years of pages of the books we’ve read,” said Johnston, of Hickory. “When I first started we didn’t keep a list. Within two years, we started.”
Together with Marshall, Johnston curates the year’s reading list, making sure to include a wide variety, from historical nonfiction to hard-hitting fiction. One thing you won’t find a lot of on the reading list: classics.
“It’s amazing the controversy that classics can bring,” said Marshall, who fondly recalls losing herself in books at her family’s summer home in Cecil, where she now lives.
It’s also amazing how enlightening book discussions are.
“The really wonderful thing, to me, about being in a book club, you form wonderful friendships, but there are any number of times that I haven’t really caught on to the point of the book. So often, just the comments during a discussion can really bring a book to life,” said Marshall.
“Sometimes you want to read the book over again after,” Johnston added with a laugh.
The women who make up Heritage Public Library’s book club not only read and discuss books, but they travel together, too.
“We’ve read a lot of books and then, if we can, go visit those places,” Johnston said. “We read ‘Loving Frank’ and we went to see Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob. ‘Meet You in Hell,’ that’s Carnegie and Frick, so we went in to the Frick Mansion.”
Book club offers women the opportunity to get out of the house, socialize and learn, and while Marshall does allow for conversation during club, she tries to keep everyone on task.
“I permit personal conversations to go on for just a certain length of time, and then I pick up the book. It really is easy to drift away from the book,” Marshall laughed.
Discussing works of literature, she said, “keeps us mentally fit.”
The Heritage library club invites women of all ages to join in their tradition. This particular club is a living example of ladies circles blooming into modern literary ones; the original Free Library in McDonald established a Woman’s Club in 1908, said Heritage Library director Nikki Sarchet.
“It’s wonderful that they’re keeping that alive,” Sarchet said. “We’re hoping to do some different age ranges. We have a lot of other reading programs, but not specifically reading clubs. They’re our superstars.”
The superstars, the voracious readers, the deep thinkers and the social bookworms at all area libraries look forward to diving into their next title, which will be discussed at March book club meetings throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania.
It appears no matter how society impacts the way writers write, or what publishers publish, bibliophiles will continue reading and discussing classics and new releases with others.
“As many books as there are, we have that many desires to keep on going and reading books,” said Doman. “I think the future of our book club is very bright.”
To join a local book club, visit your library’s website, give them a call or stop in for more information.