Book Club Magic , by Kelsey Sobel – Red Hook Star-Revue

Over the years I’ve been in various book clubs for varying lengths of time. My current club is a group of nine women, and we’re shooting for a twenty-five-year streak, inspired by the real life events of a member’s mom who achieved such impressive longevity. The club originally started with three members and has tripled in size – in fact I’m the self-selected enforcer in capping the group at ten members to maintain the integrity of conversation and discussion. According to the internet, the perfect number for a group is eight.  The system for letting newbies in is far from diplomatic, usually someone sends a text with something like, “Cool lady! Loves to read” and our newest member arrives. Due to a book clubber who lives with a rooster inside her house (a conversation that routinely causes hilarity) we called ourselves “The Hens.” Merchandise is expected to arrive soon. (I’m hoping for tote bags.)

One of the first recordings of a book club dates back to the 1600s, where a woman named Anne Hutchinson allegedly started a scripture reading circle on the long journey from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It seems that even despite the terrible seasickness and other awful assortment of uncertainty and diseases that might’ve riddled these intrepid travelers, these ladies knew books are best enjoyed in the company of others. Although my group doesn’t read scripture, Anne Hutchinson certainly had the right idea.

So far, we’re two years in with no signs of slowing down. We meet monthly either at someone’s home or out at a local restaurant. Sometimes a friend who isn’t in the club joins us, occasionally husbands or children float around the periphery. For our upcoming solstice meeting, we’re planning to hike a mountain. There’s been talk of a cross-country skiing meeting over the winter and a trip to Montreal. Over the summer we’ll have a meeting while kayaking. Although a member is relocating to Maine she’s committed to making the meetings.

In all reality, we’re a collection of women who don’t have much in common – aside from the obvious: we love to read. The women in the group share an assortment of professions: teacher, nurse, business owner, dentist, estate gardener and conservationist. At book club, our day jobs hardly matter. We live spread across a few towns in northern New Hampshire. Some have children, some in the group don’t. Eight of nine have dogs. Soon we’ll be welcoming a baby to the group, too. We range in age from thirties to fifties.

After much rigamarole and several messy processes, we decided each member would select the book according to their birthday month, in calendar order. (A friend of mine has a hyper organized group who uses a google form based on a category of book and a ranking system…this is above my group’s pay grade…) Our one-person-without-debate-selection process forces our hands at reading a wide variety and array of books – in my mind, one of the most valuable aspects of belonging to a book club is diversifying reading scope and exposure. We aren’t sticklers for the rules though, and strong opinions are encouraged. Some members will give up a book if they hate it. This is 100 % acceptable in our club – come as you are, having read the entire book or not. Our book club has nothing to prove.

Our last month’s read was The Bear by Andrew Krivak, and of the 20+ books we’ve read, it was the most universally liked. Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger came in as #1 disliked book, and is now part of book club lore. I haven’t yet figured out the formula that makes books liked or not and everyone’s passionate reactions are part of what makes the group so lively. Of course our reading preferences are just like all of our other idiosyncrasies, hard to pin down and so very human.

There are no rules or parameters for where we acquire the book of the month – sometimes we utilize group lending at our local libraries, sometimes brand new books are picked. Members share copies. A few prefer audio books, one member reads on a kindle. One of our members is diligent about writing down meaningful quotes and always reads a few out loud for us. Another member is the unofficial secretary and takes copious notes of the various titles, movies and random pop culture tidbits that inevitably come up in conversation.

Our particular mix of opinions, personalities and world views create a magical threeish hour evening that we all look forward to. People rarely miss meetings and we do our very best to accommodate nine schedules. Somehow this works out. We prefer Friday nights. Of course what makes the group so special is not just that it’s only women and we eat delicious food, it’s the perfect alchemy of conversation.

We’re hardly on our phones (aside from checking titles, dates and availability) and we don’t spend much time discussing our personal lives. I always leave feeling intellectually satisfied. Usually we all eat too much, but that goes with the territory.

If you’re thinking about starting a book club, here is my advice. Start small and let the group develop organically. Readers will come. Don’t set unrealistic reading goals (300 pages or less per month) and make sure everyone is located in close proximity. Make sure you like everyone you’re inviting into your group. Make sure at least one person is a good cook and finding a good baker is even better. Most importantly, be consistent.

I’m confident The Hens will reach our goal of twenty five years. We only have twenty-three more left and so much to discuss.