Fairfield’s reading clubs

FAIRFIELD - Do you enjoy reading, and want to share the experience with others?

You are in luck, because the Fairfield Public Library is home to four reading clubs covering different genres in both fiction and non-fiction. Some of them are clubs where one member picks out a book for the whole group to read and discuss at the next meeting. Another is a roundtable where participants read different books, and summarize the book they're reading for the rest of the club.

Fairfield Public Library Director Rebecca Johnson said the library has had book clubs before, but they didn't last. This new crop of book clubs is different because they're all more than a year old and still going strong.

'The earlier [book clubs] didn't build momentum the way these have,” Johnson said. 'I wonder if it's because of the pandemic and people enjoy the chance to have discussions more.”

The four book clubs all started in the fall of 2019. John Beghtol, who taught history at Centerville High School for 10 years and received the Iowa Teacher of the Year Award in 1971, had just moved back to the state after retiring as a hospital administrator in Virginia. Beghtol and wanted to share his passion for history with others and approached Johnson about starting a history-themed roundtable. Johnson was thrilled to help Beghtol start a reading club.

In September 2019, the History Roundtable was born. Beghtol said the group is open to anyone who wishes to share their thoughts on any history-related book they're reading. The history could be local, state, national or international. For instance, Beghtol once presented on a book called 'Rampage,” about the battle for Manilla during World War II. Another one he did was called 'Lady at the O.K. Corral,” about a woman who won the heart of Wyatt Earp.

That same year, Beghtol started another club with a different theme, this one on foreign affairs. Participants are given an article to read from the most recent edition of the magazine Foreign Affairs, and discuss it at the meeting. Beghtol pays for the library to maintain that subscription, and the library has gotten permission to print copies of the articles for members of the reading club, so it doesn't cost them anything.

'These are very heavy articles,” said Beghtol, adding that the articles often touch on 'controversial” subjects.

The most recent foreign affairs discussion was about an article on a high level Chinese communist official who has left China and is critical of the country's leadership.

A couple of other book clubs started popping up shortly after Beghtol's groups were up and running. David Patterson, who participated in the history roundtable, started his own club that focuses on literary fiction. The club meets at 1 p.m. the first Wednesday of the month, and because of the meeting time, Patterson dubbed it the 'matinee book club.”

The matinee book club follows the more traditional style where one person picks a title that everyone in the club reads. Patterson said the members take turns picking the book to read, and are asked not to pick books longer than 350 pages to ensure everyone has a chance to read it in a month's time. Since this book club requires several copies of the same book, members are asked to pay $2 for the interlibrary loan fee necessary to get books from other libraries.

'We like to pick books that are thought-provoking and give us something to discuss after we read it,” Patterson said. 'We try to steer clear of bestsellers. Our first meeting was November 2019, so we're on book No. 15 now, and every time someone has picked a good book for discussion.”

A fourth book club, one that centers on environmental issues, was formed in late 2019 as well. It was known as the Sierra Club Book Club, and has since changed its name to Earth Friends. Carole Simmons, one of the facilitators, said the club has morphed into an environmental discussion group where the members all read an article or watch a video instead of reading an entire book like in the early months of the club. The club has made a point to invite local experts to give talks on their area of expertise.

Meetings of the four book clubs were held at the library from the end of 2019 into early 2020. Beghtol said the history roundtable had become so popular that he had to turn people away, because he wanted to limit the group to 10. Simmons said Earth Friends regularly had 20 participants. The four clubs were going strong, but then COVID hit in March 2020. Though the clubs could no longer meet in person because the library was closed, they found other ways to gather.

During the warm months of 2020, the clubs often met at parks where the members could sit far apart from each other but still carry on a conversation. When the weather got too cold in the fall, some of them migrated to Zoom, and still today some of them are hybrid meetings where people can participate both in-person and online. In February, the library started allowing the book clubs to resume their meetings in its meeting room.

Johnson attributes the success of the four clubs, and the fact they've been able to maintain steady participation even in the face of a pandemic, to their fantastic leadership.

'To make it work, you have to have someone who is willing and capable as a facilitator,” she said.

Johnson said she's hopeful that the success of the clubs will inspire someone in the community to lead a book club dedicated to the classics.

'Maybe a former English teacher will step forward,” Johnson said.