Our History

In January, 2001, a group of readers started gathering at the Poway Library Branch of the San Diego County Library System to discuss books. The group had a wide variety of tastes and it shows in the book selections they chose to read. The first book they discussed was Range of Motion, a new novel by Elizabeth Berg, quickly followed by two Barbara Kingsolver novels. We moved on to.mysteries, classics, biographies, or whatever the group chose.

Since the group is sponsored by the Library, we are open to any new member. Over the next seven years more of us joined. Others dropped out or moved away. Unfortunately, two members have died, leaving us the memory of their presence. But the love of reading and the discussions did not change. Janette was our recording secretary until the end of 2007, then Kay took over. Sylvia is our leader.

At first the books were chosen each month for the next month. Finally, after 5 years, in 2006 we changed how we decided what to read. The selection process often took 15 to 30 minutes per meeting, cutting into our discussion time. That could be frustrating when the library closes at 8 PM and we had to leave before we were finished talking. So we set aside one meeting to choose books for the upcoming year. We set aside the April meeting for book nominations. Everyone brought a list of possible books. Then we chose what we wanted to read for the next year. One of the books we chose was Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. We all knew that was a long book, so we purposefully scheduled it to be discussed in May, 2007. In April, 2007, we chose the books for another year, giving us two months to read the Southern classic. For 2008, we read Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak over the two month period that included our selection meeting in July. For 2009, we read Hawaii by James A. Michener for our two month period. In 2010 our August meeting will be our choosing meeting for 2011, and our two month book for September is John Adams by David McCullough.

How To Join:

It's very easy to join our group. We are a community sponsored group and open to that community. If you'd like to talk about our books with us, show up at the Poway Branch Library any third Tuesday of the month. We'll be there.