Reading Together

— Jane Applegate Belzer

It is a bright spring day in Ohio and my father comes home from work a little early. He seems excited, a twinkle in his eye. “Janie, do you know what day this is?” I knew it wasn’t my birthday or Christmas so I just looked at him. I didn’t want to guess wrong.

“What?”

”It’s opening day for baseball!“

The Cincinnati Reds will soon begin their 1953 season. Dad walks to the bookshelf and pulls down his old standard poetry book of American verse. “Come here,” he says. “Have a seat.” He opened the book and began to read. I sat on his lap listening to his voice, the inflections and the excitement pouring out. Though I was barely reading at that point in life, I knew something very special was going on with the words on the page. And when he read, “But there is no joy in Mudville – Mighty Casey has struck out!” dad’s eyes glistened with tears. Silence. A deep breath and on came the radio with the announcer’s voice, the crowd cheering in the background. I somehow knew that there was something special in that shared reading experience.

This brief story from my childhood is a prelude to reading across my lifespan and my love of book clubs. Reading with friends, I call them. Book clubs are an old forum for sharing reading experiences. From Anne Hutchinson’s group aboard a Puritan ship bound for Massachusetts in 1634 to the 1996 announcement of Oprah’s Book Club, literary discussions have persisted as a tour de force in American culture. It is estimated that there are now more than 5 million book club members in the United States, with most clubs comprising less than 10 members. AARP has a special online book club for women readers and universities like Ohio State have book clubs for alumni. And then, thanks to Oprah, we now have book clubs by other celebrities like Jenna Bush Hager and Reece Witherspoon. While I still take OLLI courses that focus on various types of literature, there is a difference between classes and book clubs, I think, because book clubs nurture relationships through shared reading experiences and classes are mostly about reading the text.

Last year there were several articles about the new epidemic of loneliness and these articles made me think about another reason I like my book clubs. A piece in The New Yorker described loneliness as a toothache for the soul. Vivek Murthy, the former U.S. Surgeon General, wrote that loneliness increases your risk for cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke and premature death. Yikes! He said that persistent loneliness is worse for your health than being sedentary or obese. Chronic loneliness can be a grim fact of life for those in this stage of life. All of this is good motivation for becoming part of a book club.

My first foray into being a member of a book club came from a group of women friends scattered all over the country. We would plan annual retreats to reflect on the state of our lives and get feedback, suggestions and advice from one another. We morphed into a book club declaring that we would read books by women authors only. Ann Pachett, Liz Moore, Lisa See, Elizabeth Strout, Alice Munro, Geraldine Brooks, Ruth Reichl, Louise Erdrich to name a few favorites. Though the number of our members have dwindled over the years and our discussions have gone from weekends filled with food and laughter to hours on Zoom, we still are reading together. We take turns recommending books and we prepare questions for discussion which we rarely follow. Comments and critiques about our reading are interspersed with updates about health issues, family, travels and politics. Nearly thirty years of reading and conversing means a great deal to all of us.

The other book club that I’m devoted to is also all women readers. This group grew from two friends preparing to teach an OLLI class on the book Women Rowing North by Mary Pipher. Because the book probed issues of women aging, we wanted to try out some ways of discussing sensitive topics with a small group of willing, thoughtful participants. The self-disclosure and careful listening were so deep and caring that when we finished reading this book, we wanted to read more books together. We each nominated books we wanted to read and created a reading list of sorts. When Covid disrupted our monthly gatherings, we adopted Zoom and have continued using that technology. We have had some turnover in group membership due to a number of factors that affect older women. New members have come from members’ friendship groups. Our book selections are wide-ranging, both male and female authors and both fiction and nonfiction.

Some examples from the reading we have done include:

From this sample of books you can tell that our tastes are eclectic. And not all of these books were enjoyed by all of our members. Though we tend to be polite in our criticisms and careful in our praise (after all, these all are brilliant, well-read women in this group,) we like to stretch ourselves with our selections. Sometimes when I think I will never get through this one (The Visionaries, for example), I know that if I just keep at it and push through, there will be members of our group who will shed light on my misunderstandings and difficulties with the text. As our group has grown, sometimes it’s hard to get a word in when everyone has something really important to share. The talking becomes so animated and the quieter members of the group don’t always get a chance to talk; other times, there doesn’t seem to be much to say about the book so we talk about other things, e.g., a recent surgery, a family member’s health crisis, new restaurants we have tried. Reading a book alone and then together takes on new meaning and friendships grow.

A book (or an iPad) is always within reach.” Books are a uniquely portable magic,” said Stephen King, and reading books with friends assures that the magic comes alive. My dad shared this magic with me at an early age and I’m forever grateful that he did.

Jane Applegate Belzer, retired professor and Dean of USF’s College of Education, joined OLLI in 2012. She has taken OLLI classes in literature, art, history, lifestyles, nature and technology. Jane is a member of the Food Glorious Food and Talking Movies SIGs. In the past she teamed up with Ara Rogers to teach A Course is Born: From Concept to Classroom, an OLLI course for prospective instructors.