Our Very Unique Book Club

In all honesty, I can't remember how long we've had our Shiloh Book Club, officially called "Book Bliss," but I was involved from day one. A new "Anglo" moved to Shiloh and felt the need for a book club to help make friends and talk BOOKS.

We've survived COVID lockdown and now a war... Here's more of the story...

Our Book Club started run like most others. We'd meet monthly, late in the evening, and we all had to read the same book. Then came... complaints...

There were two subjects for complaints. One was that the meetings was too late, and another was that it was too early, some members were hungry, because they hadn't had time to eat dinner.

So we came up with a great idea, Potluck Dinner! We started meeting a couple of hours earlier, and each brought something delicious to eat for all. Usually we'd end up with a healthy and balanced meal, though on occasion it may have been too heavy on the desserts, but who's complaining... As time went on we've ended up bringing the same sorts of food each month. My specialty is baked vegetables, including a special version for a neighbor who needs it cooked differently.

The second problem was the logistics of finding and sharing around the assigned book each month. In addition not all members manage to read a book a month.

We're all different ages, including some over a decade older than I am. Everyone is welcome, so we decided that it would be better to have a more flexible "book." We choose a genre or author, and we are very happy with that. For example, these children's books on the left were what I read for poetry. 

Another change we made was that each month a member is in charge of choosing the genre and facilitating the meeting. It's working for us.

We began by meeting in different homes, but, since some members can't walk up and down stairs, that limited the amount of suitable homes. Luckily there's a Women's Center* in my neighborhood, which is very easily accessible. Now that our numbers have grown, it's better than our homes. Plus the hostess's husband doesn't have to hide out.

Friends in nearby communities who've heard about our book club joined us. In Shiloh we have a nice group of English speakers and were happy to welcome them.

If you'd like more information, please feel free to contact me via the comments.

*It's officially called: The Inner Circle Women's Center Shilo and funded by donations from here and abroad.