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For the Love of Reading

The Blackstone Memorial Library, like many area libraries, has had great success engaging younger people through their high school years. But Jenna Anthony, the program coordinator, and others at the library, noticed that after graduation those same young people sometimes didn’t come back until they had children of their own. At the same time, some of the younger staff members would often talk about how difficult it was to meet new people and make friends as an adult.

The solution?

Ask them out for a beer.

“We started our book club at Thimble Island Brewery almost three years ago, and it’s been a huge success,” says Anthony. “It’s amazing to see people making real connections with each other, exchanging phone numbers, and making plans outside of book club. We have several members who drive close to an hour to come to our meetings because they have so much fun and have made so many great connections.”

The Books & Brews Book Club has been a success on another level as well. The book club members, after years of having to read for school and work assignments, are remembering what it’s like to read for the sheer love of getting lost in a good story and carefully crafted prose.

“Our members say they love having a reason to read every month and that being a book club member has helped them rediscover their love of reading,” she says. “We’re thrilled it’s been such a success and that we’ve been able to meet a real community need while also helping support a local brewery. It’s been a win all around.”

The Books & Brews Book Club is just one of several offered by Blackstone, and one of dozens offered by libraries and bookstores along the shoreline and in the Connecticut River valley. While some of the clubs take a breather during the holidays, there are several planned for later this year, and plans are already being made for early next year. They are all open to anyone from any town, and the meetings themselves are free.

Some Tips from the Pros

For those who are interested in joining a book club, here are some tips from the pros.

Book clubs help support local booksellers when book club members buy their books there, creating the additional benefit of supporting these important community gathering spaces. But, if the cost of new books seems prohibitive, Grahame Burton, the owner of Harbor Books in Old Saybrook, says there are ways to keep the costs reasonable. Recent releases are often popular picks for book clubs for obvious reasons, everyone’s talking about them. But they can be hard to find at the library, and hardcover books can be a bit pricey, he points out.

“Customers are surprised that their book club book is only in hardcover, if it is a new release, hence expensive,” he says. “When clubs choose a new book such as Where the Crawdads Sing, as have several local clubs, customers often tell me they are number 200 and something on the list at the library! So they end up having to buy.”

Burton says he often suggests that book clubs consider a classic, or something that was a best-seller many years ago. “That way there are plenty of used copies around and other clubs are not competing for the title at the library,” he says.

When he hears his customers moaning about the title their club picked, he asks, “Did you go to the meeting where the next year’s books were chosen?,” he says. “Usually the answer is no. So, always make a point of attending the meeting where the books are chosen.”

Keep Up, Or Not...

Richard Parent, who recently purchased Breakwater Books in Guilford with Paul Listro, says Breakwater Books currently sponsors about 25 book clubs, and that, to help keep prices reasonable, they offer a discount to the book club members who purchase the books at Breakwater. Their plan in the coming year is to invite some clubs to hold meetings in the store.

His advice? Don’t get down on yourself if you don’t quite finish the book, or even if you forget to purchase it until the very last minute.

“My mother, who is in her eighties and lives in Oregon, is in a book club. Recently, I called her and when she picked up the phone she responded in a hushed voice that she couldn’t really talk because she was hosting her book club,” he says.

He asked her what book they were discussing. She said the name of the book, speaking in a strange voice.

“I responded, ‘You haven’t read it, have you?’ And she replied, ‘No,’”

He adds, “we won’t take ourselves too seriously at Breakwater Books and won’t judge anyone if they haven’t read the book club book. And, we’re happy to sell books to book club members who come in a panic the day before the book club meets.”

Find Common Ground, and Friends

Ann Thompson, the head of adult services at the Essex Library, says don’t be surprised if the book club becomes something more than a book club. As with the members of Books & Brews in Branford, she finds that people in the Connecticut River valley who love books enough to go to a book club often find other common ground.

“Many of the folks in our groups enjoy the meetings tremendously and they make friends with the other members and do things together outside of the group meetings so that is something we think is a very nice outcome,” she says.

She says if someone can’t find a book club that suits their particular interests, they should consider making a suggestion to a local bookseller or library. “We’re always interested in hearing suggestions for other kinds of book groups to host and are currently looking at the possibilities of an online group as well as a silent book group,” she says.

A Silent Book Club?

Silent book clubs are designed for a constituency often drawn to libraries like bees to pollen-laden flowers, the introverts among us. Also known as Introvert Happy Hour, a silent book club often involves no more than people reading in companionable silence at a library or bookstore. There are more than 100 chapters nationwide, but the closest one to Connecticut, according to the Silent Book Club website (silentbook.club) is in Newport, Rhode Island. It is designed in part to avoid the deadline stress that can sometimes come with traditional book clubs, and the endless chatter that often starts with the book and ends up with who-knows-what about you-know-who in the neighborhood. While not as structured as typical book clubs, silent book clubs do sometimes feature wine and treats, and short breaks where people can chat quietly about weighty subjects, if they are so inclined.

Have Some Coffee, Ditch the Stress

Likewise, at the Henry Carter Hull Library, Adult Programming Coordinator Sarah Borgnis-Tobin offers a book chat that is billed as “all the fun of a book club—none of the stress.” It features coffee provided by the Lindt Chocolate Shop, a light breakfast from Doc’s Bar & Grill, a chance to win books, and lots of talk about hot titles and reading recommendations. The next one is coming up at the Henry Carter Hull Library on Tuesday, Nov. 26 at 9:30 a.m. and it will focus on local authors in celebration of National Novel Writing Month. Also during December, the Henry Carter Hull Library will celebrate its third annual Jolabokaflod [yo-la-bok-a-flot] celebrating both books and chocolate. Buy a book for two bucks, get some chocolate.

For those who are a bit commitment-phobic and reluctant to sign on with a full-fledged book club, another option is to check upcoming book events at local bookstores and local libraries. Authors love nothing more than encountering someone who’s actually read their books. Linda Williams, the owner of Burgundy Books in Old Saybrook, says her customers love doing that.

“At Burgundy Books we love pairing our book clubs with visits by the author,” she says.

Go Online

Cynthia Gwiazda, the community services librarian at the Hagaman Memorial Library in East Haven, recommends checking out the local library’s electronic resources as well.

“Our library owns an electronic book (accessible through the library’s Hoopla streaming service-available to all East Haven residents) called A year of reading: a month-by-month guide to classics and crowd-pleasers for you and your book group by Elisabeth Ellington,” she says. “We also have inter-library loan access to a book called The Reading Group Handbook: everything you need to know to start your own book club by Rachel W. Jacobsohn. We also have access to magazine articles on how to start a book club through the statewide web resource www.researchitct.org.”

When Gwiazda thinks about book clubs, she thinks about one of her favorite books, the true story of several very brave women in Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. In this novel, ideal for a book club, a group of Iranian women risk their lives to meet at the author’s home in Tehran to read and discuss forbidden Western classics.

“The story takes place over the course of two years during the Iranian Revolution (1979-1980s), during which time the women met in secrecy and outside Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, as fundamentalists seized hold of the universities and a blind censor stifled artistic expression,” she says. “This book group’s impact was profound in helping these women make sense of the emerging tyranny they were living under.”