Although reading is a solitary activity, there’s nothing that book lovers love more than talking about books with other book lovers. Book clubs have been around for centuries, though they started to garner worldwide attention and popularity when celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, and now Reese Witherspoon and Jenna Bush, started their book clubs.
Though many people belong to book clubs, either with their own friend groups or in their neighborhoods, others prefer to drop in at public book clubs, such as those held at libraries or bookstores.
Riverstone Books in McCandless Crossing, for example, hosts about six book clubs, catering to different reading tastes, from new and popular fiction to dystopian fiction to a cookbook club. Lauren Bodi co-leads ”Riverstone Romantics,” which draws about 10-15 individuals each month. The books are chosen either by the group leaders or voted on by the group. “We’re open to hearing what people want to read,” Bodi said.
Bodi said that one of the most popular books they’ve read was a paranormal romance called The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston. “It offered such a great discussion because of the underlying themes of loss and grief. We have an all-female group; they enjoy not just the romance aspects, but those books with strong female friendships,” she said.
A lifelong reader, Heather Sprague did not want to sacrifice her reading time when she opened her bread bakery, so she did the next best thing: combine her two passions with the aptly named Novel Breads Company in Mars, PA. “Novel Breads Company is part bread store, part bookstore, and I do all the baking myself. I do small-batch artisan bread, everything made with sourdough, and a lot of the breads are inspired by the books I’ve read,” said Sprague.
For example, she read a book set in Taiwan that referenced shaobing, an Asian flatbread, so she created that to go with the book’s theme.
Her monthly book club, which she originally started when she worked at Enchanted Olive, just celebrated its tenth anniversary. To mark the occasion, the group reread its very first book, Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown, which Sprague calls a fun read featuring a swashbuckling female pirate. The club reads other food-themed books across genres. Other favorites that have sparked good discussions have been A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and Ruth Reichl’s Delicious. “Everybody makes a homemade dish or brings wine,” she said. And fresh-baked bread, of course, is usually part of the menu.
Sometimes, the book club hosts events in connection with the books they’ve read, such as when they had someone come in and demonstrate how to make cheese when they read Blessed Are the Cheesemakers by Sarah-Kate Lynch.
To alleviate the solitary aspect of reading, some people choose to read in a group setting without a formal book discussion or an assigned book. That is the concept behind the Silent Book Club craze, which is sweeping the nation. Teresa Torlone, along with her best friend Amanda Young, jumped on the bandwagon in June of 2023. “We’re a group of people who get together once a month. We chat about what we’re individually reading, and then we crack open our books and read silently in a group,” said Torlone. The beauty of this model is that there are no expectations nor pressure to talk or socialize.
Torlone and Young’s group, which is part of the larger, national Silent Book Club network, meets the second Tuesday of each month at Aslin Brewery in The Strip District. She said that there are other Silent Book Club chapters in the Pittsburgh area.
Torlone herself said that she has been reading autobiographies and loved Tom Felton’s recent memoir, Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard. In October, because of spooky season, she read a lot of Freida McFadden, who is known for her thrillers.
Anea Michelle is relatively new to Pittsburgh, having moved here a year ago from Austin. A lifelong book lover, she said that while in school, “I always found myself in the library, so literally during lunch, I’d become friends with the librarians. I loved being surrounded by books,” she said.
She said that because she has moved around a bit for work and school, she makes connections with people over books, attending book events at local bookstores and eventually starting her own book clubs. She created a book club while living in Austin, and when she moved to Pittsburgh, she immediately did the same thing. Now, the book club, which meets the third Saturday of each month, is going strong, drawing 15-20 people each meeting, primarily women of color between their 20s and 40s.
Anea likes to curate the list of books that the club reads each month, which includes romance, contemporary fiction, and cozy mysteries. She particularly enjoys choosing books that are part of a series, which serves as an introduction to an author. For example, in November, her book club read a cozy mystery called Finley Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano. Another popular pick was A Love Like the Sun by Riss M. Neilson.
Anea said that she will often lead with open-ended questions, as a good book club discussion should be unstructured: ”...leaving room for people to just talk, and leaving room for silence, too. I always ask general questions, like ‘Did you like this book?’ or ‘Were there any characters that really pulled the story forward?’ I let the conversation grow and be organic and be silent when it needs to be,” she said.
Her club can be found on Eventbrite at PGH Book Club by Anea Michelle.
All of the book club leaders agreed that the community and camaraderie aspects of a book club are what make it so appealing. “People like to have a scheduled time to have an hour to themselves and laugh and hang out with others. It’s a safe space for community members to come and just be themselves and celebrate their love of reading,” said Bodi.
Despite the advent of streaming services and a constant influx of visual media, all of the book club leaders feel strongly that reading is still a much-beloved pastime. But reading a great book and then discussing that book with other bibliophiles elevates the experience many times over.
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