Why I Love Book Clubs by Gloria Alden

I belong to two book clubs. The first one I joined was in the fall of 2006. It was a new book club started by Carol Baker, the local librarian, and we met in a café with lunches and antiques and crafts for sale. It was called The Brew Basket. I think the first book picked was To Kill a Mockingbird, but I didn’t keep a record then.

Eventually, Carol couldn’t be with us because government funding for the library was cut back. She still had another book club at the library. We met there every third Thursday for several years until the Brew Basket went out of business. Then we went to several other restaurants for a while and finally ended up at Roby Lee’s, a larger restaurant where we had more room and where we still meet at 11:00 a.m. on the third Thursday of each month, except when one of our members has us meeting up at her cottage on Lake Erie in July.

Then in December, we meet at my house and each of our members comes with two or three books for us to pick from for the following year for January to November. The extra books are added to a list for anyone to read after they’ve read that month’s book. We have a potluck meal at my house, too.

When we meet at Roby Lee’s, we discuss the book-of-the-month and then some of us stay for lunch, some order take-out, or some, like me, order the meal for takeout, but stay there to eat from the salad bar, which is really good and includes soup, dessert, and delicious small slices of white pizza. Carol Baker is retired now and has joined us again. The waitresses who takes care of us always bring coffee or tea and fresh baked bread with butter to nibble on while we’re discussing the book or talking about what has gone on in our lives since the last time we met.

The other book club I joined was the Red Read Robin. It was started in February 2008 and meets on the last Thursday of the month at 6:00 p.m. It’s a larger book club with over half of the members related to each other and at least half of them go to the same Mass I go to. We sit together. This book club is held in a member’s home where she prepares the meal, or if the member for some reason can’t or doesn’t want to have it in their home, they pick a restaurant for us to meet in and usually bring some little gift to give us. One of my best friends has a small house and a husband with a disability so she always chooses a restaurant. The hostess of the month always serves wine with the meal, too. We just celebrated our tenth year this past month. This book club always has wine with the meal, too. The first book that was chosen for that book club was also To Kill a Mockingbird. Only three members have dropped out, not because they didn’t like us, but because they were too busy like Erin, who is a teacher and just had her second child, an adorable baby girl, and an older son, who is now in kindergarten. Her husband is also a teacher and both of them have lots of papers to grade. Another member moved back to her hometown in PA, and only comes once in a while because of the distance to drive at night. Two of our members live at fifty miles away so don’t come quite as often, and when it’s their turn to have the book club, they have it on a Saturday afternoon so no one has to drive the distance after dark

My love of belonging to book clubs, which have so many positive aspects. First, it’s interesting to hear everyone’s opinions of a book you’ve just read. Some really liked it. Some had a few complaints and then there’s one member who often hated the book, which is kind of upsetting for the hostess of the book club that night who picked the book.

Second, it’s fun to be with fellow book lovers, who have become my friends over the years I’ve belonged to both book clubs.

Third, I’m introduced to books I might never have heard of or particularly wanted to read. I’m a big mystery fan and read more mysteries than anything else, but it’s good for everyone to read other books, too. There have only been a few over the years that I didn’t like, but that is because the person who picked the book didn’t bother to read it first. I often pick a good mystery, or a book I’d read in the other book club and enjoyed.

Do you belong to a book club?

If not would you like to belong to one?