Kendra Sisserson talks about the "characters" who make up The Literary Society of San Diego, CA. She stresses the importance of the diversity among the club's members and reading selections, living by the mantra that books are essential to enjoying life. The Literary Society must be doing something right --- one member who was in the military even participated via email while he was away!

Q: Does your group have a name and/or a theme? How long has your group been in existence?

A: Our name is the Literary Society of San Diego. It started as something of a joke --- trying to sound high falutin' --- and now has stuck, mostly for nostalgic reasons. We don't have a theme, exactly, but we do have a motto: "Finding Meaning Even Where There Is None."

We've been meeting since 1997 and are lucky to have several charter members still with us.

Q: How many members do you have? How many men, how many women? What age are most of your members?

A: We try to keep our membership at 12. Over the years we've had a good balance of men and women --- usually about 7 women and 5 men. In the last couple of months we've lost a few members (three moved away and one got busy with domestic life) and changed our website address, so we're down in membership at the moment.

Q: How often do you meet? Where do you meet?

A: We meet once a month. We rotate where we meet --- usually taking turns at each other's houses, with occasional other venues. For our 100th meeting, for example, we met at a restaurant and brought guests. Each July we meet at the beach for a picnic.

Q: Do you eat at your meetings? What do you eat? Who brings the food?

A: Oh, of course we eat! The host or hostess provides the food. Generally, we try to connect the food with the book in some way --- when we read an Indian author, for example, we prepare Indian food. For our holiday meeting, we do a gift exchange of wrapped books and have holiday food.

Q: Who leads the discussion? Do you use reading group guides?

A: We don't use reading group guides. Generally, the host/hostess is the ad hoc discussion leader. Often, the person who picked that month's book will do extra reading on the subject and provide background and other tidbits to help with the discussion. But in our group, we rarely need any help generating discussion.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: All kinds are fair game. We read fiction and nonfiction. This year, so far, we've read The Polished Hoe, Bel Canto, A Fine Balance, Puddn'head Wilson...and next month we're reading Blink.

Q: How do you choose your books? Do you choose one new book at each meeting, or do you choose the books for a number of meetings ahead of time?

A: We choose the books about a year ahead of time. Once a year or so, each member nominates a book to be read. The member doesn't have to have read the book, but should be familiar enough with it to speak about why he or she picked it.

Q: What were some of the best discussions or favorite books the group read?

A: Oh, gosh. That's difficult. The best discussions (and this is one member's opinion) are the ones that generate debate or disagreement. We had a great time with The Sun Also Rises, because it was one member's favorite all-time book while other members cannot stand Hemingway at all. That was lively. We were all struck by King Leopold's Ghost, From Beirut to Jerusalem, A Fine Balance --- I guess you could say we also love discussions of books from which we learn things. We're looking forward to discussing Reading Lolita in Tehran for December.

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: We've got several characters in our group --- maybe we're all characters. We like that we are a mixed-gender group; so many are all women. I think we're pretty young and diverse for a book group --- we range in age from 20s through 40s, and include an artist, a journalist, a university professor, several media/publishing folks, a stay-at-home mother of two and one of San Diego's most eligible bachelors, devoted Christians, Jews, agnostics and atheists. We're also friends outside the group and involved in political activities, so there's never a shortage of things to talk about. We are bound by the conviction that books are central to enjoying life and that conversation about books is key to enjoying them richly. If a book we've read is made into a movie, we go out together for a "movie night."

Q: What advice would you give to other reading groups?

A: To try to be diverse, in membership and in reading choices; to honor each other's opinions; to hold to a bit of a code, by which I mean to try and prioritize the group in your lives. I've been in several reading groups, and this is the most successful by far. The others I've been in have tended to become more excuses for social gatherings, and while we certainly are social, we insist on keeping the books at the core of why we meet.

Q: Do you have any horror stories, amusing anecdotes, or other special tales to tell?

A: No horror stories, exactly. We often get unsolicited books from authors who are promoting their works, and we try to do them justice, but sometimes that's pretty difficult. We were featured on a local TV show because we were reading The Da Vinci Code (sometimes, we read whatever's hot --- just for fun) during the controversy. That was a raucous discussion...our group contains Catholics and atheists, and it was on TV! Our youngest member, who just left town to attend college, was in the military and when he shipped out for a stint on an aircraft carrier, he participated by email.

Q: Is there anything else unique or noteworthy about your group that you would like to share?

A: Hmmm.... We have been featured on a couple of websites and in The Book Club Cookbook. But what makes us unique? Personally, I think that the success of the group is pretty powerful --- as I said above, book groups often don't have a lot of staying power. We're all young(ish) working folks, so it's not a Tuesdays-at-10-AM kind of club, and we have to work pretty hard to keep it important. We're all activists and, as I said above, fiercely supportive of the power of good books and good conversation.

© Copyright 2001-2012, ReadingGroupGuides.com. All rights reserved.

ReadingGroupGuides.com interviews special reading groups around the world, spotlighting a different group each month. We hope that you enjoy reading about their experiences and might find some new ideas to try with your group. If you belong to a group that you think should be spotlighted, click here to send.

Back to top.