- BOOK CLUBS - the route to lifelong learning
"Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” ― Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.” — Charles William Eliot
“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.” - Ernest Hemingway
“I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough... The more one reads the more one sees we have to read.” - John Adams
“Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.” - Joseph Addison
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I thought it would be interesting to discover how many of our classmates belong to Barnard
Book Clubs. So far I have uncovered four—New York City; Washington, DC; Phoenix; and Seattle. Each Club functions in its own way and, where possible, I have provided full or partial reading lists.
Pictures of members are included as well. I hope you enjoy this section of the website and would love to hear your comments. Let me know if you are a member of a Barnard Book Club ASAP so that I can include you and your group.
xox,
Susie Levenson Pringle (susique@aol.com)
BARNARD BOOK CLUB OF SEATTLE
The Barnard Club of Seattle has been in existence since the 1940s when created by two Seattle area alumnae, the Hagmoe sisters Eve and Phyllis, ’41 and ’43. I joined the club in August of 1964 when I moved to Seattle with my new husband, Stuart Swanberg CC’61. The Club has been my second “family” all these 53+ years.
The Barnard Book Club has been active since the spring of 2000 when we gathered to discuss Interpreter of Maladies by Barnard’s own Pulitzer Prize-winning Jhumpa Lahiri ’89.
Our format is to meet at the homes of various alumnae 6 times a year (fall, winter and early spring) on Saturdays at 11:30 AM with a brown bag lunch in hand. Book discussion starts around 1 PM and continues until 2:30. Average attendance is 12 alumnae.
The Alumnae range from the class of ’52 to the class of 2009. There used to be two of us from ’62 but Barbara Steinberg Geller died about 5 years ago and is sorely missed.
In this academic year our book choices (chosen by popular vote) were:
The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer
Nutshell, by Ian McEwan
Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly
It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis
The Great Fire, by Shirley Hazzard
The Association of Small Bombs, by Karan Mahajan
Here is a picture of the Seattle area Barnard Book Club at the
home of Suzette Ashby Larrabee, class of '66, on April 21, 2018.
Standing behind the couch, L to R:
Minda Levy Borun '65, Alison Gibb Swanberg '62, Deborah Goldsmith Peres '87, Nancy Zeitz '59, Dorothy Tyler Stephens '80
Sitting on the couch, L to R:
Ellen O'Brien Saunders '63, Suzette Ashby Larrabee '66, Eva Renate Mader '60, Katherine Lind '84, Nancy Vignec '70,Nora Lih '66
Alison Gibb Swanberg sent us this story. - BARNARD BOOK CLUB OF PHOENIX
Phyllis Edelstein Stern '65 and Renee Klausner Gerstman '82 formed the Barnard Book Club of Phoenix in 2003. There are twenty participants ranging from the Class of 1954 to the Class of 2013. The Club meets every six weeks in the evening, either at someone's home or at a restaurant. Books are recommended by the members at each meeting and one is chosen for the next meeting. All genres are fair game. Members volunteer to be facilitators at each session. Susie Levenson Pringle is the only member from the Class of 1962.
Recent Book Choices
Sisters in Law, Linda Hirschman January 2016
My Name is Lucy Barton, Elizabeth Strout March 2016
Hamilton, Ron Chernow May 2016
The Emperor of Ocean Park, Stephen Carter June 2016
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi September 2016
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead November 2016
The Nutshell, Ian McGowan December 2016
LaRose, Louise Ehrlich January 2017
Commonwealth, Ann Patchett March 2017
A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles April 2017
Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders May 2017
I’m Travelling Alone: A Novel by Samuel Bjork July 2017
The Sympathizers, Viet Than Nguyen September 2017
Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld October 2017
Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng December 2017Exit West, Mohsid Hamid January 2018
Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan March 2018
Educated: A Memoir, Tara West May 2018
Pachinko, Min Jin Lee June 2018
The Female Persuasion, Meg Wolitzer July 2018
L to R: Marilyn Brooks, Susie Pringle, Dorothy Meunier, Phyllis Stern, Renee Gerstman, Shoshana Tancer, Meg Sass, Marlene Ross
Susie Levenson Pringle sent us this story.
- BARNARD '62 BOOK CLUB OF NEW YORK CITY
Nancy Brown Schmiderer and I started the NY Barnard ’62 Book Group ten years ago with a few classmates. It has grown to 17 members including three from other classes of the 60s, three who live on Long Island, one in Rochester NY and one in Florida. We meet once a month on Tuesday afternoons in members’ homes. We try to keep food, drink and gossip to a minimum. Everyone is expected to have responded to the monthly email reminder and also to have read the book. Usually about twelve women attend. The wide-ranging books are selected by the members months in advance and the member who chose the book introduces it with background information when the group is scheduled to read it. We have had guest authors, including Anna Quindlen, several times. We recently had a small piano recital by three members in connection with a book about a piano. We try to be supportive of each other and we also share practical information. We help out at Reunion and attend mini-reunions. Everyone is invited to join the book group or at least visit. Just let Nancy or me know so we can be sure the hostess has room. I think our Book Club has made us all feel closer to each other and to the College.
Marcia Stecker Weller ‘62, marcia4815@gmail.com
Book Choices - Sept. 2018-July 2019
Democracy in America, by Alex de Tocqueville
Little Failure, by Gary Shteyngart
Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
Pachinko Min, by Jin Lee
Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng
Leaving Lucy Pear, by Anna Solomon
Dinner at the Center of the Earth, by Nathan Englander
The Custom of the Country, by Edith Wharton
The Favorite of the Gods, by Sybille Bedford
North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell
Persuasion, by Jane Austen
Barnard 62 Book Group meeting at Karen Charal Gross’s apartment in NYC on Tuesday Feb 12. Top L to R: Rita Breitbart Auerbach ‘65, Rita Gabler Rover, Joan Rezak Katz, Valerie Horst. Bottom L to R: Nancy Brown Schmiderer, Karen Charal Gross, Judy Eisenberg Bieber, Michelle Chaussaubel Cusumano, Shari Gruhn Thompson. Photo by Valerie Horst.
