Booked Solid: Tales from the Club

There is so much we can do with books – read them silently, read them aloud, listen to them, annotate, analyze, and dissect them, write about them in oh-so-many ways…the list goes on. But one of the best activities we can do with books is talk about them! And while I will personally talk about books and reading to basically anyone who will listen, I especially enjoy discussing them with others who share not only my love of reading but have also read the same books.

This brings me to book clubs. Book clubs are not new – some even date to the 1600’s. In the 18th and 19th centuries they gained momentum, often as a place for women to share intellectual pursuits. The Book of the Month Club began in 1926, which made contemporary literature more accessible, and the Great Books Movement followed in 1946 to support book discussions in educational settings. Fifty years later, Oprah started her book club, and the modern-day book club has only grown from there.

These days there are more ways to start and join book clubs than I could possibly list. One I recently learned about is called Fable. This is an app where you can join and/or start online book clubs. One you join, you can choose clubs based on a wide variety of options, and you can save and organize all of your books in the app. Goodreads also has a virtual book club, and there is a website called Bookclubs, where you can find online book clubs to join.

However, I find that my favorite kind of book club is one that meets in person. Fortunately, Wickson provides many opportunities for just that! First, there are the organized book clubs that meet at or through the library. The Wickson Reads group meets at the library one Wednesday evening a month to talk about the book they have all read. The Brews & Books club meets monthly- once at the Kaffee House and once at Gera Tavern- to discuss a shared book, and Books for Lunch is a monthly drop-in club at the library where you can talk about whatever you are reading!

But what if you want to host your own book club? Wickson has you covered for that, too! If you would like to gather some fellow readers and make sure everyone has access to the book for free, you can check out one of the many Book Club Kits available at Wickson. Each kit provides eight regular print books, one large print book, and, when available, one audiobook. It also includes a list of discussion questions to provide some direction for the group. You can reserve a kit and check it out for eight weeks, which gives you the flexibility to meet wherever you are comfortable and provides the books so your group members don’t have to buy them.

A few of the current Book Club Kit titles include Kate Quinn’s The Briar Club, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, and The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. If the library doesn’t have a title you may be interested in, they welcome recommendations and will do what they can to get a kit for the book you want.

So, if you, like me, enjoy sharing what you read with others, then a book club may be the perfect way to expand your reading adventures!