Book Groups A Stable Tradition in Southbury

Sometimes, Oprah will feature a book on her show and launch the country in a reading frenzy.  But for many, reading isn't a fad to join and in Southbury, the myriad book clubs in town have continued on a steady course.

            A person looking for a club can join one of the Southbury Library's. The fiction club will discuss "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy on July 27 at 6:30, and "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery on August 24. Refreshments are part of the package.

            The Library's nonfiction book club is slated to read "Sitting Bull" by Bill Yenne, on August 11 at 10 a.m.  "A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World," by William Bernstein on Sept. 8, and "Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage," by Jess Benedict on Oct. 13.

            At Borders in Southbury Plaza, another group meets to discuss extraordinary women writers once a month on the 2nd Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. The group is limited to 12-15 people, and their next choice is "Death Comes to the Archbishop" by Willa Cather.

"This club started as the Jane Austen Club," said Marguerite Starr, Corporate Sales Coordinator at the store. "After we read all her books we had to move on," she said.

            A current events club also meets every Friday at Borders. The store sets up tables and chairs, and the groups are free to purchase coffee or snacks from the coffee bar during their discussion.

            One Southbury resident, Carol Weil, helped to start a club soon after she moved to town 13 years ago. The group started as resident of Oldfields Condominium, and then grew to include other members of the community.

            "We read biographies of Americans, and novels from other countries," said Weil.  "We occasionally read a real beach book, laugh about it and enjoy it, but don't find much to talk about.  We usually serve coffee, tea and cookies, but keep it simple."

            Weil, whose career was in health care, had majored in English and journalism, and said she always loved to read.

"We are as much a group of people who enjoy each other and like to get together as anything," she said. "But we are also all very busy."

            The Heritage Village Book Club, Starr added, likes to order their books ahead of time and the store keeps them behind the register.

"They gave us a new list recently," she said, "and we ordered them." Any book club, no matter how it is organized, can request space for their meeting and ask the store to order books at a significant discount for the club.

            Starr, who arranges special events, like book clubs, actually belongs to two book clubs in Southbury.

"I was in the same group for 17 years," she said. "And then we split off because it was so big."

            How do they choose books? "We each write a name on a slip of paper and pull one title for the next meeting," she said. "We don't do hardcovers, because of the expense, and we stay away from bestsellers," she added.

            "Making a list and going forward is a good idea," Starr said. "That way if you can't make a meeting, you can read ahead."

"I've heard of book clubs that read all about food, and then serve food for their meetings," she said. "There are book clubs for everybody. A lot of them are very social, but at the store, no one knew each other; they just talk about the book."