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Retirement:
Finally, time to read?
Note: Retirement can mean that you now have time to read a little – or finally, a lot! Hawvers’ Still Booming wants to support reading (among other great retirement activities). Looking for your next read? We’d like to share frequent updates about what Topeka-area folks are reading, so let us know (publisher@hawvernews.com). We’d especially like to hear from book clubs—and not only those for folks 55 and better, because many books aren’t age-limited.
Here’s a look at three area book clubs--books enrich their members and grow communities.
5:05 Book Club
By Janie Rutherford
For many years, the members of the 5:05 Book Club shared day-to-day work as we were/are all in the communications field.
Some members worked together in the same offices at various times, and we were all members of our Topeka IABC chapter. After having one member move out of state, we became a solid group of nine.
What started as a group that would meet for drinks and decompression at 5:05 pm on the first Friday of the month eventually became just “5:05”. One night someone suggested that we become a book club. In a very loose plan, we would continue our 5:05 social gatherings but add a book discussion every other month.
Our inclusion of books began in 2013. After year one, we agreed that six books weren’t enough to do in one year, so we expanded to 10 books a year, leaving two months for purely social gatherings!
After some starts and stops on how to select books, we landed on the following: in November of each year, each member submits three or more book titles for inclusion in the next year’s reads. A list including a synopsis of each book is circulated, with each member voting on 10 books from the list. The final book list for the upcoming year is then shared at our December Holiday Gathering. There have been several years that a tie-breaker vote has to be taken.
Over the years we have tried to set a certain date for each month’s gathering (like the second Thursday, for example) but that quit working several years ago. Now we each select the book we want for our meeting, speak up for the month we want to host the meeting, and then get on with our reading.
So far this year we've read “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans, “The Frozen River” by Ariel Lawton, “The Measure” by Nikki Erlick, and “The Stolen Life of Collette Marceau” by Kristen Harmel.
This group has travelled together, celebrated the weddings of our children, the blessings of our grandchildren, the loss of parents, and everything else along the way. A ton of history, not to mention hundreds of secrets that shall remain buried until someone writes our book.
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Junior League of Topeka Book Club
By Laura Vaughn
Our group started in April 2015 and is open to any active or sustaining member of the Junior League of Topeka (JLT). Our president at the time garnered interest after learning that other Leagues around the country had started successful book clubs; we have been going strong ever since and will even lovingly (but unofficially) refer to ourselves as the "Lit Leaguers."
We read any and all genres, with members making suggestions as they come across books they've read and enjoyed. We then hodge-podge together a reading list for the year. It's a fairly informal setup but it seems to work well for us!
We have about 60 names on our email list and will have anywhere from four to 20 people at any given gathering. We meet one evening per month, and our members volunteer to host at their homes.
Anyone who is available is welcome to attend, whether you've read the book or not. But we do discuss the book, so if you show up without reading, there will be spoilers! Those who can attend will bring wine and/or a snack to share (sometimes we end up with only desserts...and sometimes those are the best nights!).
When we can't find a hostess or life intervenes (i.e., long icy driveways, tornado sirens, sick kids, a pandemic, etc.), we aren't opposed to supporting local restaurants and coffee shops; we have been known to make an appearance at 785 Brewery, Blackbird, Classic Bean, and Salut.
We've read and supported local authors, hosted guest speakers, had a few road trips to KC, and have even had movie nights when they make one of the books we've read into a movie (the book is always better...).
We typically read one book per month, with the exception of December, when we will do a holiday book exchange. This fun, festive tradition has become a favorite highlight of the year that we all look forward to. Everyone brings one wrapped book along with a story of why they picked that particular book.
It might be their favorite book of all time, it might be one they just finished or just got themselves and haven't read yet, or it might be "I ran out of time and stopped at the store on the way here and this was the first book I saw!" (That only happened once, but it's warmed our hearts ever since!) We swap the gifts by reading "The Left/Right Night Before Christmas" and open them one by one, and by the end of the evening have an eclectic list of new book titles we are all eager to read during the next year!
It's a great group with great traditions, and we often marvel at how many books we've read and how long we've kept our meetings (and friendships) going after so many years.
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Potwin BYOB Book Club
By Christine Steinkuehler
Potwin’s book club has been going since before Covid. We meet about once every three months, but it varies.
There are special things—a recent meeting was held at the Thomas Fox Averill Special Collections Room at the new WU library, and we got a tour led by Tom. What a fantastic space and collection!
We get together to talk books. We do not read the same books. It called the Potwin BYOB--bring your own book—Book Club. We don't limit how many you bring so sometimes this goes late into the night. We don't restrict it to people who just read physical books; we love to hear about podcasts, magazines, audiobooks, all of it is welcome.
During the summer we try to have a food truck at our meeting. I have learned so much over the years at this and have gotten some of my best book recommendations. We pass around books quite a bit.
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Don’t forget the library!
The Topeka and Shawnee County Library hosts or co-sponsors book clubs for people of varied reading interests.
“It's a great way to meet friends and enjoy an evening of book worship or book debate,” according to the library. “Take a look at everything we have to offer and get in touch right away! Each club has a moderator-librarian who'd be happy to get you reading and meeting up in no time.”
For details: https://tscpl.org/readers/book-clubs
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