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The Weimar Public Library launched a new and popular book club this month, announced during a city council meeting, Thursday, Nov. 13.
Weimar Public Library Director Misty Strode made the announcement but credits its creation to Lydia Ford, a member of the Friends of the Weimar Public Library. Ford said she remained primarily a financial donor until she casually suggested a book club. The idea took off with Ford at the forefront of the club’s organization.
“I really want this to be that safe space for everybody. I want everybody to feel welcome and to just enjoy. You don’t have to be a total bookworm,” Ford said. “Sometimes we’ll get into great, in-depth literary criticism and conversations. Other times it might be lighter topics that we just get to reflect on life and different things like that.”
The book club does not center around a specific genre and will select the book of the month a month before based on recommendations. For January, the selected book is “The Lion Women of Tehran” by Marjan Kamali. Kamali’s website describes the historical fiction novel: “A heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.” Ford said her favorite genre is historical fiction and that she enjoys listening to a lot of audio books. She said she hopes readers will suggest other genres like classics.
“I’ve never read a sci-fi book. I’ve never read a lot of mystery,” Ford said. “I want to be encouraged to broaden my horizons too, so we will get into everything hopefully.”
The club had an unofficial meeting to plan and gauge interest on Monday, Nov. 10. The club will have its first official meeting on Monday, Jan. 12, at 6 p.m. to discuss “The Lion Women of Tehran” and to pick the book for February. Ford said the club will not meet in December due to the holidays.
“It’s really looking like Mondays are going to be a good day. I foresee it probably staying with the Monday, but it’s not set yet,” Ford said. “We will have our first meeting, and I think by then, we will be able to gauge interest and gauge participation to then choose [the meeting date] that next month.”
The club has quickly grown in popularity. Strode originally reported 10 active members and 10 prospective members at the city council meeting.
On Nov. 21, Ford said that the club had reached about 35-40 members on the list with many more interested.
“You make a Facebook page, and next thing you know, you’ve got lots of people interested,” Ford said. “If I had to ballpark, about 40 people very interested who reached out and said, you know, ‘We really want to be a part. Maybe we can’t be at the first meeting, but we definitely want to join in.’” Ford said she didn’t originally expect a large number of participants but that she wants the club to grow organically without a cap on the number of members. If the number of those actively attending grows too large, Ford said she could imagine breaking into two clubs, likely based on genre. She said the club is open to everyone, including non-Weimar residents and non-library members.
“I can’t believe how many people are interested in this,” Ford said. “It’s very exciting.”
