Hey, All You Readers

 About half a year ago as part of community outreach efforts with the bookstore I managed, I had my assistant manager contact one of the small local libraries, Your Home Public Library, to see if they might be interested in partnering with the store to start a book club/reading group. The library had been looking for programming to fill extended hours, and the director was enthusiastic about the idea.

Thus started the most fascinating and fun project I have been involved in. I started out as a liaison between my store and the community, and am now more of a liaison between the library itself and the community.

My store has closed, but I refused to cut my connection with the library. Honestly the Director, Steve Bachman, has been a huge influence in my decision to actually go through with my desire to get myself in gear and go for my library degree. Rarely have I had the pleasure of working with someone so obviously in love with what he does.

And it really shows in what our little reading group has evolved into. What started as a few curious folks wandering through to see what the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was about into a group of friends who meet once a month to talk about one thing we all have in common- a love of books.

We started out with a book at a time, planning for next month, and going from there. We made bookmarks for the event, and posters, both of which I displayed in the store as well as communal posting boards throughout the area. I have moved on to pointing folks to the library website and facebook, adding to my habit of making book recommendations at regular intervals in my livejournal.

I am by far the youngest person there, but as soon as those discussions get rolling, I hardly notice. Sometimes we manage to stay on track and discuss the book of the month for a half hour or so before chatting and getting to know each other better. When we read The Art of Racing in the Rain, we spoke more on the impact canines and companions have had in our lives, interspersed with a discussion of the book itself. And it all fit. The conversation flowed naturally and we all went away knowing just a bit more about the person sitting next to us than we had before.  We read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and had community members who work with autistic individuals show up for the discussion and give their viewpoints. We read The Help and had a group so big we could hardly contain ourselves at our usual table, everyone wanting to talk about what they had just read, touching on a hard topic in a safe environment.

It is amazing what will come out of something as simple as a monthly book discussion. This is my little family. We all notice when a regular is absent. Folks have started bringing other books and movies to lend to each other, sharing beyond whatever it is we have selected for the month. I had a phenomenal support system there for me when I went through the process of closing the bookstore that had more or less been my life for seven years. We ask after each other, not just the books.

This isn't just a book club. Sure, it isn't huge, but the people who are there make it a sublimely enjoyable experience. I am someone who gets intense enjoyment out of sharing something I have read and enjoyed with other people. Doing this outside of the retail environment I had been familiar with has been exhilarating. I want to do this for a living. I want to greet these folks, see what they have for me, and what I can suggest for them. The library is in an old building that rattles and grumbles as the heat turns on and off, a building with so much personality it adds its own little something to each meeting, and I adore that as well.

Here's hoping a few of you get interested enough by this to join us! djkc  accompanies me with fair regularity. It is not at all what you remember from discussing books in school. Trust me.