Women in the Hut of Winona, Minnesota
Thanks to Karen Odegard-Dulak of Winona, Minnesota shares her group called "Women in the Hut." The group answered these questions together as they enjoyed a bonfire at one member's home. This is what they shared...
Q. Does your group have a name and/or a theme? How long has your group been in existence?
A: Our book club is named Women in the Hut. We began meeting at a toy store that a book club member owns. She had an area in her store for kids to come in and do arts and crafts and it was called The Hut. It was decorated in Gilligan Island hut stuff --- grass skirts on the walls, fish, shells, etc. Our first meeting was in the Hut and that is where the name came from! Our first book read was Operating Instructions by Ann Lamott and we all loved it --- it's still one of our faves. We have been together since July of 2000.
Q. How many members do you have? How many men, how many women? What age are most of your members?
A: We have between 8-12 members depending on schedules, etc. All members are women, and we range in age from 30-52 years.
Q. How often do you meet? Where do you meet?
A: We meet once a month on the third Tuesday of each month. We have met in cafes, homes, around fire pits, campgrounds, and for our one-year anniversary we had it at a place called Toad Road (near the Mississippi River). And yes, we have still met a few times at the toy store.
Q. Do you eat at your meetings? Who brings the food?
A: Sometimes we eat --- often it is inspired by the books we are reading. We read Daughter of Fortune and met at a Mexican restaurant. We served scones and tea when we read Bridget Jones' Diary. One member brought candy cigs when we discussed The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
Q. Who leads the discussion? Do you use reading group guides?
A: The group refers to me as the Queen of order in the hut --- I am the "historian" and secretary. Yes, we do use reading guides that are either provided in the back of the books or we go online and find them!
Q. What kind of books do you read?
A: We read a variety of books, but our main premise is that we only read female authors. We have read children's books Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, we have read nonfiction --- Operating Instructions and Traveling Mercies by Ann Lamott and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Ann Fadiman and biographies including Awakened by the Moon, the biography of Margaret Wise Brown.
Q. How do you choose your books?
A: We try to choose books to take us out at least 3-6 months. That way if there are really ravenous readers, they can plunge into the next books on the list if they wish. We go with suggestions, websites like this one, Independent 76 lists, Barnes and Noble recommendations.
Q. What were some of the best discussions or favorite books the group read?
A: Saving Graces, Operating Instructions, Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Cheerleader, Tuesdays with Morrie (the only male author we have discussed), The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, Daughter of Fortune, The Giant's House, To Kill a Mockingbird, Bridget Jone's Diary and Nickel and Dimed.
Q. How do you keep things fun?
A: We have played book club jeopardy, we have shared food around the themes of our books, we have brought old photos to share, we have dressed up and we have arranged for photo shoots of the group in hats. We wore witch hats on the Harry Potter book discussion night and that was fun! We have used a question for the month that is based off of the book we are reading in case you didn't read it or were unable to finish it you could take part in that conversation. An example would be when we read Tuesdays with Morrie, the question for that month was "Who was your favorite teacher and why?" This lead to a really great discussion. We went to a late movie show in our PJs to see Bridget Jones' Diary.
Q. What advice would you give to other reading groups?
A: Part of why we come is the book. The part about fellowship and gathering is also important to all of us. We remember to celebrate birthdays --- a bookmark is presented to the b-day person signed on the back by all of the members in attendance that evening. I keep a group e-mail list and update folks often as to the what, where, when so everyone knows what is or has happened whether they were able to attend or not. It helps all of us stay on track and together. Even members who have become too busy with life events and have been unable to attend for a while still tell me they keep reading the books the rest of the group is discussing.
Two funny stories that we could think of --- when we celebrated our one-year anniversary, we invited a photographer friend (who has since joined our club) to take a group shot of all of us. We all gathered on a dock next to the place that we were using as it had more space for all of us. We accidentally broke it as we were all getting off of it! It snapped like a twig! One of our members was 9 months pregnant --- we were afraid she was going to go into labor right there from the surprise and shock --- it was a good laugh!
Our other funny story was that the local newspaper was doing a story on book clubs and had contacted me to find out about ours. I invited them to come to our next meeting. It was our Harry Potter night and as I mentioned, we had witch hats on and some of us had capes on and the whole house was lit with candles and had tons of HP stuff around for decorations. When the newspaper reporter came she wanted to slant the entire interview into this witchcraft/satanic thing. She wrote in the paper that we had donned black lipstick --- two members had taken a black Bertie Botts jelly bean and colored their lips with it. The interview did not go well and they did not capture the true spirit of our group!
Q. Is there anything else unique or noteworthy about your group that you would like to share?
A: One noteworthy thing about our club is that we have donated money to organizations if it connects to a theme in the current book we have read. The month we did Black and Blue by Anna Quinlan, we gave money to a Women's Resource Center that helps women in crisis situations. When we read The Saving Graces, we gave money to the local Humane Society in honor of the dog named Grace in the title. We became friends of the public library as a group (with a donation) after we read The Giant's House, a book with a librarian as a main character.
© Copyright 2003, ReadingGroupGuides.com. All rights reserved.
