Book Clubbing

A Resurgence

Americans have become obsessed with screens; screens ranging from the largest iMax screen in the land—the 101-foot-by 70-foot AMC at Lincoln Square in New York City—to Apple watches that are roughly two inches square.

But there are encouraging signs that people are emerging from their stupor, raising their faces from their devices and actually talking to each other. An example of this new social movement is the proliferation of book clubs in the region, where participants share the communal experience of reading the same book and then sharing insights and opinions.

“We can’t survive in digital space,” said Benjamin Rybek, manager of the Kent’s House of Books book club which he oversees. “I doubt anyone has a meaningful discussion via text. Book clubs fulfill the need—as do music venues, movies and other places where people come together. Everyone used to go to the movies or to read: now it’s more of a niche thing. Whatever is ‘new’ may crowd reading a little bit but it’s nice to see certain arts—writing, filmmaking, whatever—becoming a little more niche because the people who take part truly, truly love it.”

Rybek’s book club is held on the third Thursday of each month and participants vote on what book they will read. “Sometimes people tell me they don’t like the book we are reading,” he said, “but I tell them the group voted on it. That’s a little bit of a canard because I choose five books and they choose which one they want. I always choose something I would like to read.”

Nevertheless, he has noticed a trend in the group’s preferences for “darker topics that they can kind of wrestle with.”

“They like to talk about themes, language and situating the story in its cultural milieu,” he said. “This is a group of very smart people. When people come for the first time they often say, ‘Man, you people really talk about stuff!’”

Kent is home to several other book clubs as well. And among the other bookish offerings is Betty Krasne’s popular series that offers a different theme twice each year. Krasne, a writer, professor emerita and longtime Kent resident, explores such themes as family dysphoria through a selection of four books, all of which examine the concept from different angles.

This year’s topic will be Fascism Revisited and starts September 11th. It has traditionally been presented on Zoom but this fall the first session will move to in-person in the library. The remaining sessions will be online. To register please email kla-bmcallister@biblio.org.

Wendy Murphy head ups Kent’s No Name Book Club, which was started at least 25 years ago by Jackie Markham. “We are in competition with the other book clubs,” Murphy said. “We are all women and we have women who join two or three book clubs. All of the clubs have distinguishing features, like the Vintage Book Club, which reads old warhorses like David Copperfield. If anyone wants a lively spirited group come to us, not the Vintage Club. We’re also a great place to hear all the gossip.”

She said her club alternates between fiction and non-fiction. “Everyone is supposed to come with suggestions for which book to read next and then we sit around and argue about that. We can’t just read fiction. We want gritty stuff to read like science, technology and biographies. We try to stay away from political things but we can’t resist.”

Following each meeting, Murphy writes a summary of what happened and what the group will read next. It is circulated among the 25 members, not all of whom are active. “We meet on Sundays about every five weeks at the library,” she said. “We had much better attendance at people’s houses but it was better for the library because they get brownie points for another service.”

Anyone who wishes to join can get Murphy’s contact information from the library at 32 North Main Street.

The local library also promotes the book club trend by starting children on the literary path early through its middle school group that introduces middle schoolers to the concept of analyzing an author’s works. A teen book club for older youths is in the offing.

But Kent is not the only town with multiple book groups. The Norfolk Library hosts several book groups including a First Monday Book Group, a new Cookbook Group that focuses on regional cuisines and Books and Boots, a reading group that is a joint venture with the Norfolk Land Trust.

The club reads a book about a topic—turtles, beavers, birds or whatever—and then takes a hike while the members discuss the book. “We usually get a good crowd in the fall,” said Bina Thomson, who oversees the program. “We try to pick a trail that matches the topic. Hartley Mead is a fabulous guide and points out things as we walk along, so we tend to pause a lot on the hike. The conversations can be organic, with people at the back of the group talking about one topic and those in front another—which can be nicer than more formal book discussions where one person talks.”

In the winter, when Norfolk weather can be rough, the action moves indoors to the library’s Great Hall, where the fireplace is lit and the group changes its name to Books and Booties.

“This weekend (August 16th) at 9:30 AM, we are trying out Books and Boots Jr.” Thomson said. “The whole hike will be about a mile in Barbour Woods and Miss Eileen (the children’s librarian) will pick out a picture book and read it in front of the woods before the walk.”

Those wishing to attend should register here.

Academic and cookbook author Mark Scarbrough—no, he does not run the cookbook group—conducts the most venerable of Norfolk’s book groups. The Norfolk Library Book Group which meets on select Thursdays via Zoom has grown over the years to include participants from as far away as Tanzania.

“The Norfolk Book Group celebrated its 15th anniversary this past year,” said Scarbrough, “and the group has now read 192 books. There are no original members left but some members are going on 14 years.”

He said the group grew out of a 2009 guest book group discussion. “The discussion was well received. It took a year to put the funding in place, and we started the group in the summer of 2010. We were very aggressive then and met every other week but now it’s every three to four weeks.

Every winter, the group tackles “something monumental” that consumes its full schedule. “I am the curator, and I get to decide which books we read,” he said. “We bang around a lot in contemporary fiction. I read about a year and a half in advance of the group and I stick with what hits me. We’re just finishing a set of Finnish novels. I read 17 Finnish novels and chose eight for the group.”

As a former academic, he says he reads widely and eclectically. “A person does not need a book group to read John Grisham,” he said. “I’ve nothing against those books but I am looking for books that have an edge to them, that have multiple entry points so people from all walks of life can discuss them.”

He said his group “exploded” during Covid when it went online and attracted international readers. “We have tried unsuccessfully to pull it back,” he said, “but we have people from Dublin, London, Berlin—even Tanzania—that give money to the group, so it is hard to go back to in-person.”

He said the group is very diverse with everyone from professors emeritus down to “people who have never been to a college.”

“We remain an open group,” he said. “Members have to sign a pact that there is one thing they can never say—'I liked it or I didn’t like it.’ Instead, they have to talk about how the book works, how author does or doesn’t meet his stated goal or if he changes his mind half way through and it feels weird. We can’t discuss personal tastes, because if you say, ‘I like artichokes,’ and I don’t, that’s the end of the discussion. The deadly part of book groups is “I didn’t like it.” There’s just nowhere to go.”

Scarbrough also runs a poetry discussion group in Salisbury's Scoville Library that he says is “utterly different” from the Norfolk group. “It’s sporadic,” he said. “It goes in three-to-four-month bursts. We have been reading contemporary US poets although I keep threatening them with Virgil.”

The Salisbury group only meets in person as it tends to be smaller. “Poetry is so antithetical to our world, it’s so much older, more contemplative,” he said. “Most of the people who come are those trying to write poetry. The Salisbury group ended last month and there is nothing scheduled but I expect it will pick up. Many people need to take a break from poetry.”

As in the other towns, the poetry group is only one of several in the town. The Scoville Library also hosts the Current Fiction Book Group, which meets monthly, and Noble Horizons, a senior living community, has offered virtual book clubs in the past.

Over in Sharon the Hotchkiss Library hosts the Tuesday Afternoon Book Group, a dedicated group of readers that meets the first Tuesday of each month at 3:30 PM. The group has read 250 books together, both fiction and nonfiction and every fall hosts a facilitated discussion series moderated by the peripatetic Mark Scarbrough.

All are welcome and copies of the books under discussion are available from the library.

Book groups may be surging in numbers and popularity but they are nothing new. The history of book clubs can be traced back to the 19th century where they found their origins in women’s clubs of the late-19th century. Women’s clubs emerged out of the progressive movements and were predominantly composed of white women from the middle and upper classes.

In Canaan, one such group was the Hawthorne group, organized in 1890 and composed of women fans of—guess who—Nathaniel Hawthorne, who, contemporary lore and Hawthorne’s own notes, suggest visited the town. It is probable that he was a guest at the Lawrence Tavern, owned by the influential Lawrence family. While in the area as in his “notes” he comments on the peculiar front step of the venerable building where Isaac Lawrence had engraved his, his wife’s and his nine children’s birth and death dates.

Miraculously, the club, formed 26 years after his death, continued as a literary institution into the 21st century.