Book Club Spotlight: Sheepshead Bay

Off The Shelf highlights book discussion groups happening at our libraries across Brooklyn. All of our book discussion groups are free and everyone is welcome to participate. Sheepshead Bay Book Club has been in existence for over 20 years. 

Silvia Glasser, a retired librarian at Brooklyn Public Library, started the book discussion club at Sheepshead Bay Library in 1998, and continued until the end of 2012.

In 2016, as the adult services librarian at Sheepshead Bay, I was tasked with resurrecting this wonderful book club. I started with an old attendance list compiled by Mrs. Glasser. After a four year break, I was pleasantly surprised that inviting participants back to the book club was only a matter of calling the names on this list. Soon, the schedule was set: last Monday of the month, 1:30 – 2:45.

Our first discussion club was in September 2016. The selected book was Kristen Hannah’s The Nightingale. Set in France 1939, it is a story of courage, survival, and loss. In preparation, I researched France during WWII, the The Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE), and 19-year-old Belgian Andrée de Jongh who risked her life to help Allied servicemen escape over the Pyrenees to Spain. I even had an old map of France to use as a visual aid with the club.  On the day of the discussion,as I was fumbling with the map, I soon realized I did not have to give historical background to this club. Three members well remembered the time before the war. The lone man in the club was a decorated soldier who served in the navy from 1944 – 1946. As I stopped talking and started listening, the book discussion began.

As the club evolved, I found that they leaned toward books about family relationships, other cultures and traditions, and historic fiction. The club sat through unpopular and emotionally provocative title choices. Occasionally, a book, disliked by the majority, gets a second chance after the discussion, and is reread by the individual members. Some of our most popular discussions have been My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, The Bridge Ladies by Betsy Lerner, and The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris.

Three times we have incorporated movies into the discussion. In April 2019, we viewed and read Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach. The book takes place on the wedding night of a young couple. Both are right out of college and sexually inexperienced. The novel is an exploration of miscommunication, expectation, and 1950’s sexual mores. The book was not liked by everyone, but the backgrounds of the characters and the events that led them to this traumatic evening made for engaging conversation. The movie, also written by McEwan, raised more questions that seemed to open up the discussion, but the club seemed to agree that it was not as nuanced as the book.

Every discussion is a surprise to me. Sometimes I can guess what characters and plot points will engage the club and sometimes they will come to a surprising evaluation of the title. One month the book chosen was When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, a suggestion by patrons, staff and book club members. This New York Times bestselling memoir generated a tough discussion about loss. Instead of being inspiring, it caused despair.

When choosing a book, I make sure the title is in our catalog, then reserve enough titles in advance to make sure there are copies for every member. After the book discussion is over, each participant goes home with next month’s book. To select titles, I use various resources available: suggestions from colleagues, checking the library’s online calendar for discussion titles from other book clubs, and our wonderful book discussion sets help keep the titles flowing.

I’ve spent three years with these committed book club members. Our conversations have been hilarious, insightful, and impassioned because their diverse opinions are informed by their various professional experiences, childhoods, and life opportunities. They don’t agree on everything, but they are unified by their love of reading, thinking, discussion, and the last Monday of every month.

The Sheepshead Bay Book Club meets on the last Monday of every month from 1:30 - 2:45pm. The next meeting will be Monday, June 24th.