The Fellowship of the Book

Book Clubs in Austin

By Alyssa Wang

Take out all the “mandatory” and “graded” parts of those literature circles from school, add a dash of familiarity and casualness, and sprinkle it with free will, and some find that those things are not quite as bad as they seem. Book clubs, as a matter of fact, are quite an appealing form of socialization, according to Kiboseaux-Posey.

“You could make friends for life,” Kibodeaux-Posey said. “It’s a great way to meet people that feel organic. Once you’re out of school, it’s difficult to meet people and make friends outside of work.”

Book clubs are found all over Austin, from the Austin Public Library to BookPeople. Readers regularly gather and meet with each other to discuss a book they’ve read. They discuss all sorts of topics with their fellow members.

People who join a book club are generally open to conversation and looking to socialize, according to Kibodeax-Posey. While striking up a conversation with a stranger on the train may feel extremely awkward, striking up a conversation in a book club feels less so.

“[It helps to have] a place where you know you’ll have at least some common interests,” Kibodeaux-Posey said. “And these people are there to socialize, so it doesn’t feel awkward approaching someone and trying to introduce yourself.”

According to Leslie Flynn, founder of the Graphic Novel for Adults book club and the For the Love of Books book club, making friends can be difficult because people usually don’t meet regularly enough to get to know each other. Flynn said that book clubs help people meet more consistently because of regular meeting times.

“It’s a bit difficult to make friends as adults because you’re not often in social situations with the same people all the time,” said Flynn.

Dauphin Ewart, one of the founding members of the Voyage Out book club, said that friendships made through book clubs could last for a long time.

“It’s people who I now have known for 10-plus years,” Ewart said. “It’s a neat way to get to know people.”

Book clubs can also help members meet all sorts of other people, according to Flynn. Anyone who wants to read can join a book club, so a diverse group of people can be expected. Flynn used the members of her book club as an example.

“I have meeting members of a very large age range,” Flynn said. “I have some people in their twenties, and then I have grandmas in their seventies, and we all get along and have conversation and communication. I think it’s really great to have that opportunity to bond over something you love with people you might not otherwise interact with.”

Kibodeaux-Posey said that being able to talk about something you love with people who also love the same thing can make you feel closer. That can be what makes a book club so interesting.

“You’re getting to know people,” Kibodeaux-Posey said, “you’re sharing a common interest- these are usually folks that like to read a lot- and you really bond over that love of books, and you’re with your fellow nerds, and it’s just delightful.”

Elvia Palacios, the co-manager of the YA for Adults book club said that making friends with the people in her book club is her favorite part about it.

“[My favorite part of a book club is] to talk about books with people that are slowly becoming friends,” Palacios said. “It’s just fun.”

According to Flynn, book clubs also help expand reading ranges. If people read exclusively in a limited genre, being assigned books by a book club can help them try new things and maybe discover their new favorite genre.

“I have a lot of people who come in only reading their favorite genre,” Flynn says, “whereas in the Graphic Novel book club, they’re given an assigned reading that might be outside of that genre and they’ll discover other things they like.”

Reading across a wide range of genres is important because it expands perspective and helps people understand others, Kibodeaux-Posey explained. Because of this, book clubs also try to make diversity a priority when it comes to choosing books.

“We try to read diversely as well,” Kibodeaux-Posey said. “We try to pick books that feature different cultures, ethnicities, special orientations, all those things, because it’s a good chance to expand people’s horizons and become familiar with other folks they might not be familiar with.”

Getting members from all over the country certainly contributes to understanding and familiarizing yourself with different perspectives. Since so many book clubs are now online, it’s now possible for people who aren’t from Austin to attend. Flynn explained that the Graphic Novel book club was able to meet such people this way.

“I started doing that book club virtually and was getting people attending not only from the Austin area but from all over the country,” Flynn said.

According to Palacios, being able to have such a diverse group of people in a book club is thanks to some book clubs now having meetings take place online or in a hybrid format, where some people are online and some are in-person. When book clubs host meetings in a hybrid format, members can have the benefits of both online and in-person meetings.

“People can also show up virtually because we have a laptop in Teams hooked up to let people log in virtually and take part in the discussion,” Palacios said. “That’s helped people from out of the state or even country join our group.”

Occasionally, even people from outside of the US find out about a book club and become members, explained Flynn, who works with people from France.

“We have people actually from all around the world attending,” Flynn said. “One of the kids is from France.”

According to Flynn, the influx of virtual book clubs is partially due to the COVID pandemic. Social distancing forced people to come up with new ways of running book clubs and brought unexpected perks with it.

“Had COVID not happened, I don’t think the Austin Public Library would have gone into the realm of virtual book clubs at all,” Flynn said. “Having accessibility to meeting with people not in the immediate Austin area would not have been a possibility. I have a regular in California and one in Nashville, and I never would have met those people had COVID not happened.”

People are now able to meet with others all around the country through book clubs. Palacios felt very excited about this development.

“That’s exciting sometimes as well, to be like, ‘Wow, we never would have met if it weren’t for this book club here,’” Palacios said.

According to Kibodeaux-Posey, virtual book clubs are also more convenient for some people. Members no longer have to spend an extra hour driving to a place just to get to a book club meeting and can join from anywhere convenient for them.

“Going virtual has helped people show up more consistently because it’s easier for them to fit into their schedule,” KibodeuaxPosey said. “We might get a better turn-out most of the time than we might get in-person, and our regulars might have an easier time showing up virtually rather than in-person every month.”

During times when driving might not be possible, virtual meetings help with keeping the meeting going. Palacios described one such instance in March.

“That’s really helped us too with this past meeting for [March],” Palacios said. “We had to shut down in-person programming because of the high winds that we were having here in Austin, but since we had the virtual option, everyone was able to still come to book club even if they could not come in in-person that night.”

Getting members to come back to meetings doesn’t work as well online as it does in-person, according to Flynn.

“It’s more difficult to get the same people back initially because it’s so easy to skip,” Flynn said. “It’s not something in your acute routine.”

Flynn said that virtual meetings also have the downside of not being able to form that same connection with other members as quickly as you could in-person.

“In in-person meetings,” Flynn said, “I feel like you can make a quicker connection with people, especially since once the meeting’s over, if you want to continue a conversation, you just walk out with that person and talk in the library. Virtually, I think it takes several meetings before you really get a feel of other people.”

.According to Flynn, while connecting with people through virtual meetings is a bit harder than it would be in in-person meetings, it can be achieved with a little effort.

“I do think it’s a bit harder- it’s not impossible- but I do think it’s a bit harder to connect with the virtual group,” Flynn said.

People also start book clubs for all sorts of reasons. Flynn, for example, started the Graphic Novel book club simply because she loved books.

“The first one I started was the Graphic Novel book club for Adults,” Flynn said, “and I wanted to create that because I love graphic novels and I’ve wanted to bring them to my community in a way that we could talk about them.”

Flynn started her other book club, the For the Love of Books book club, as a result of the COVID pandemic.

“I started it because the people in Austin who attend my virtual Graphic Novel book club wanted to meet in-person,” Flynn said, “but I didn’t want to have to host the same book club twice, once online and once in-person, so I thought, ‘Oh, what about a book club where people come in and we just talk about whatever books we want to, as opposed to one specific read.’”

Ewart, on the other hand, started the Voyage Out book club with his friends more or less spontaneously.

“It was actually my friend who came up with the idea and wanted to start one,” Ewart said. “There wasn’t a big plan behind it. It was pretty random.”

According to Palacios,

Austin Public Library employees might start one for work experience. Palacios said that she started the YA for Adults book club with KibodeauxPosey for just that reason.

“I was just looking for a program to be part of and take charge in, just to get my experience,” Palacios said. “Book clubs are really easy. If you don’t have experience running a library program, it’s a really easy one to do. Plus, I really do love the genre a lot and like discussing books, so it seemed like a good fit for me.”

Kibodeaux-Posey said that she decided to co-found the YA for Adults book club because she wanted the work experience and it was pretty easy.

“At the time I started,” KibodeauxPosey said, “we didn’t have a lot of adult programs, and book clubs are pretty easy to do. ... And I read a lot of YA anyway, or at least I used to, but it turned out to be one of my favorite things to do at work.

According to Flynn, managing a book club is a fairly light burden in most cases.

“For the For the Love of Books book club, it’s real easy to manage because it doesn’t have any required reading,” Flynn said. “We just talk about the things I’m reading for any other purpose. That one really is just a matter of making sure my online marketing gets done, my flyers are updated, and that I set up the room for our meet-up.” Book clubs that have assigned reading tend to be a bit more work for the manager because they have to come up with discussion questions for the meeting. Flynn used her experience managing her Graphic Novel book club as an example.

“The online one is a little more complicated because it does have that reading,” Flynn said, “and I do have to come up with discussion questions to make sure there’s enough there to talk about.”

Managers also have to set up the meeting rooms before the meeting starts. Palacios explained how she set up the YA for Adults book club. Eventbrite, an online ticketing website, makes her job much easier.

“About 15 minutes before 7,” Palacios said, “I set up the meeting room with the chairs and tables for those who will come in. I have a good idea of who’s going to show up just based on the Eventbrite sign-up. We have maybe two people sign up virtually and 3 in-person. I‘ll get some snacks and drinks out so people can munch on things, coloring pages and stuff to color with out, and then I just wait.”

According to Palacios, managers of book clubs in hybrid format have a bit of extra work to do. They have to set up the technology connecting to the virtual meeting in the in-person meeting room.

“If there are people virtually,” Palacios added, “I’ll get the Chromebook out, and we have this cool device called the Owl that helps people logging in virtually get a 360 view and see everybody and hear very well as well.”

Some people might start off with an icebreaker to get everyone comfortable first, but that’s not always necessary with older groups with more regular members, Palacios explained. Icebreakers could also cut down on discussion time.

“I used to have an icebreaker,” Palacios said, “but I think I’m slowly doing away with that just because time is so little. We spend so much time answering the icebreaker that we end up not having enough time for the book or other things.”

Depending on the book club, the discussions that take place could also feel different. Palacios talked about her experience with the discussions in the YA for Adults book club.

“We’ll always try to come back to the book and what we liked or didn’t like about it, but it just gives us room to talk about how we felt as teenagers,” Palacios said, “when we read about a protagonist that’s a lot younger than we are at this point, or reminiscing on who we were then versus how we are now, or even what adulthood is like in comparison. So some of it can just feel very cathartic.”

The Voyage Out book club takes a slightly different approach. They focus more on the contents of the book instead of their opinions on it.

“We spend a lot of time talking about themes in the book and our reactions to it,” Ewart said. “We always stay away from the question of whether we liked it or not.”

Book club discussions can also change someone’s views on certain points in a book. Palacios talked about some of her experiences within a book club.

“I come away from book clubs where I came in liking the book and liking it less after listening to people talk about things,” Palacios said. “And not in a bad way, just like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re right about that.’ Or the opposite, like I came in not really liking the book and I ended up at least having a deeper understanding and better respect for it, like ‘Oh, I see now how this was supposed to impact those individuals’”.

Book clubs can be very fun and thought-provoking activities. Most people find themselves enjoying their monthly get-togethers. So the next time one of those mandatory literature circles pops up, just remember that there are people out there who find those things fun.

As long as they aren’t mandatory.

The bookshelf of Kevin Garcia holds books collected throughtout his life. Book club leaders look through an assortment of literature to find a suitible one for their meetings.

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