Hobart and William Smith Colleges

19 March 2013 Hobart Alums on Men's Book Clubs

In a recent Democrat and Chronicle article about book clubs as part of the Rochester culture, alums Jeremy Cooney 04 and David Grome 07 were featured for having respectively started and joined a mens book club. Cooney is currently vice president of development for the YMCA of Greater Rochester. He started The Mens Book Group last year for friends and men with whom he regularly socializes.

When wed be out with our wives, spouses or partners, wed often end up talking about whats on our nightstands, and I thought Its not too often guys get together and have an intellectual-esque conversation. Guys generally get together after work at a sports bar, and you cant talk about books while everyones trying to watch a game. So I figured Why not carve out time and make a point of having this conversation, the article quotes Cooney, adding the mens varied fields made for good conversation when discussing their first book, Chris Matthews Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.

Having seen many book club meetings growing up with his mother, an English literature professor, Cooney sees a difference between men and womens discussions. Notably, women seem to be more comfortable with such discussions.
I think its a little more socially acceptable. Once, when I told a friend I was leaving a meeting to prepare for book group, he said What? It was an abnormality, Cooney is quoted. But, weve all been to college; we enjoy small group discussion and challenging opinions.

Grome has joined Cooneys book club for just such a reason.

I miss the reading from college and talking about the works and connecting the ideas to our personal lives. I missed that type of community, the article quotes Grome, a business strategist with Eric Mower and Associates, noting Grome also sees the club as an avenue through which young professional men can find the identity they seem to lack in this age of two-income households.

Cooney graduated with honors in public policy from Hobart. He was a member of the Druid Society, Chi Phi fraternity and was president of Hobart Student Government. After graduation, Cooney worked at Alumni House and was named manager of campaign leadership of The Campaign for the Colleges. He then attended the University of Albany Law School. He was selected to serve on the editorial board for the Albany Law Review as its executive editor for symposia and graduated cum laude.

He practiced in a wide range of civil litigation matters including medical malpractice, commercial litigation, product liability, and general defense litigation, with Ward Greenberg Heller and Reidy, in Rochester, N.Y. Cooney was recently appointed as a member of the New York Young Leaders Congress because of his passion for and interest in promoting his home state.

Grome is a business strategist at Eric Mower + Associates; he joined EMAs Public Relations + Public Affairs practice in 2007. In that role, he has developed and implemented public relations programs for a variety of business-to-business clients. Grome is also a member of EMA Insight-the agencys integrated research, strategy, planning and analytics group. In the community, Grome volunteers with the Diversity Committee for the Rochester Chapter of Public Relations Society of America and serves as a board member for the Small Business Council of Rochester, an affiliate of the Rochester Business Alliance.

At Hobart, Grome majored in political science and was one of the creators of the Hobart and William Smith Colleges Public Affairs Journal. He was a Druid and a member of Chimera, Hobartones, Perfect Third, the Herald, and served as president of Hobart Student Government.

The full article from the Democrat and Chronicle follows.

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Democrat and Chronicle
Book clubs are part of the culture in Rochester
Anne Schuhle March 10, 2013

Twenty years ago, Dawn Borgeest joined a monthly book club for the same reason many people do. She loves to read and thought itd be fun to hang out with co-workers, have dinner and talk about books.

The club met her expectations and then some.

I have to say there are times you could walk into a meeting and youd be hard-pressed to know its a book club, says Borgeest, now chief corporate affairs officer for United Way of Greater Rochester.

At one of their earliest sessions, for instance, a member had just discovered henna as a temporary hair dye, so they all decided to try it right then and there.
As the months passed, so did chapters in their lives, and the womens friendships grew as they shared job, marital, medical and family milestones. Some of their selections have bred even deeper confidences, such as one book that touched on incest, leading a member to share her own experience.

Its pretty amazing that a book can have that power, and that there can be that much trust, says Borgeest, who joined the club not expecting that depth of emotional commitment. I consider these women some of my best friends and an important part of my life.
Book clubs are nothing new locally or nationally, but there has been a surge in recent years, enough that Gevas current production, The Book Club Play, has hit home with many.

When Boorgeest saw the play, which is popular enough to have its run extended through March 23, she recognized aspects of her own club on stage in the discussion of whether popular books, like the Twilight series, were highbrow enough in the shared intimacies in the protectiveness and concern about whos allowed within the clubs sphere in the characters ability to still surprise one another after a decade or more together.

A club for everyone
Although there are similarities among book clubs perhaps none greater than the enthusiasm for food and libation no two are the same. Rochester is host to dozens of clubs that meet monthly or bi-monthly at homes, coffee shops, book stores and libraries. Some focus on a specific genre, others mix it up. Even though its a pastime that women seem more drawn to, there are mens clubs and mixed-gender groups, mother-daughter groups, and some that focus on ethnicity, religion and specific interest areas.

One concentrates on Jane Austen books. Another concentrates on science fiction. One of two book clubs that Sarah Collins belongs to reads only post-colonial literature, primarily about Asia and Africa. Selections have included Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, which views India through the eyes of two English women living 50 years apart.

Collins is a retired Rochester Institute of Technology English literature professor and appreciates that both of her clubs are very informal. Although there is a certain amount of chit-chat when coffee, tea and cookies are served at the end, she said members are so excited to talk about the books that its hard to wait until everyone has arrived.

Collins enjoys the post-colonial group because shed traveled to Asia and Africa without knowing much about the area.

I find I learn a lot more about a countrys geography and history from novels than I do from more academic works, Collins says. But that doesnt mean she favors quick reads.

I like big, fat, dense novels, sort of Dickensian novels, that give me a sense of whole times and place, she said.

So the 400-page limit that the club in Gevas Book Club Play eventually instituted wouldnt suit Collins, although some Rochester groups have also drawn the line at Ulysses-esque tomes.

Some local clubs have as few as four members there are six to eight in Collins but as many as 12 to 16 regularly attend the lunch-hour club that Monroe Library System librarian Carol Moldt started five years ago at the central library downtown. They meet monthly, focusing on contemporary fiction but occasionally throwing in a classic or a contemporary nonfiction work.

Book groups are just incredibly popular right now, Moldt says. Almost every person I know is in one, and we get a lot of calls and people coming into the library, looking for a recommendation of a good book.

It helps that the system has roughly 300 different book discussion kits available, complete with eight copies of the book and discussion guides. By the end of the month, the kits will also include large-print copies and audio versions.
We are really excited about it because we saw a real need, says library assistant Elizabeth Barry.

Feeling of community
Barry speculated that some of the growth in book clubs has to do with baby boomers finally having time to read more. But book clubs know no age boundaries.
Andrea Deckert, a Rochester Business Journal reporter, is one of six women age 29 to 40 who get together every other month and none of them is afraid to speak her mind, she says.

They pretty much stay on topic, too, which has been a relief to member Rachael Wojtovich, a pediatrician.

From what I had seen on TV, I was worried that it would be less actual talking about the books, she says. But everyone actually reads the books, which is my favorite thing about this book club.

To facilitate the discussion, they use questions they find online, she says.
Wojtovich enjoyed the modern epic Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, but Wojtovichs favorite has been the page-turner Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
The clubs emphasis on food and drink goes as far as trying to complement the book selection. For a plot that played out in Russia, one member brought liqueur and baked apples with a Russian sauce.

It was very intricate, Wojtovich said. I dont think Ive ever gotten that fancy.
As time goes on, the women are getting better acquainted, which means more chatting and more teasing. When they read Karen Thompson Walkers The Age of Miracles, it was Wojtovichs time for some ribbing.

It has a doomsday sort of theme, and they all teased me because I have a really intense fear of the apocalypse, she said, admitting the book did make for a little trouble sleeping.

Not just for women
At the Writers & Books store on University Avenue, Chris Fanning leads a young professionals club dubbed The Book Thieves. Membership is free and open, but after hitting a high of 20, the group has settled into 8 to 10 regulars. Everyones expected to bring food or drink to share, and if they can match the books theme, all the better hence the choice of Mexican pizza while discussing Into the Beautiful North by Louis Alberto Urrea.

Fanning and other club members attended The Book Club Play together, and it wasnt just the setting they found familiar. The club had gotten to meet the Geva cast, director and playwright last month when they attended a Book Thieves meeting to get a taste for the real thing by checking out several local groups.

Fanning says it was a lot of fun having them there, but he swears their club is as different as possible from the one on stage. After the play he balked when one of his club members told him, Youre our Anna!

The Book Thieves do discuss books, but when it comes to staying on topic, not so much, he says. One thing leads to another, and somebody else has a story that relates to that but eventually somebody realizes were off track and tries to dial it back.

Jeremy Cooney, vice president of development for the YMCA of Greater Rochester, started The Mens Book Group last year for the guys he socializes with.

When wed be out with our wives, spouses or partners, wed often end up talking about whats on our nightstands, and I thought Its not too often guys get together and have an intellectual-esque conversation. Guys generally get together after work at a sports bar, and you cant talk about books while everyones trying to watch a game. So I figured Why not carve out time and make a point of having this conversation, he said.

The mens varied fields made for good conversation when discussing their first book, Chris Matthews Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, he says.

Cooneys mother was an English literature professor, who hosted various book club meetings, and the difference hes detected so far between men and womens discussions is that women may be more comfortable with the concept.

I think its a little more socially acceptable. Once, when I told a friend I was leaving a meeting to prepare for book group, he said What??? It was an abnormality, Cooney says. But, weve all been to college; we enjoy small group discussion and challenging opinions.

His friend and fellow Hobart College alum David Grome couldnt agree more.
I miss the reading from college and talking about the works and connecting the ideas to our personal lives. I missed that type of community, says Grome, a business strategist with Eric Mower and Associates.

Grome also sees the club as an avenue through which young professional men can find the identity they seem to lack in this age of two-income households.

Breaking the mold
Members of modern book clubs feel free to mix it up and create a group that suits them. But the granddaddy of them all The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle has been kickin it old school since 1878. Operated by the Chautauqua Institute near Jamestown, its the oldest continuous book club in the country.

Its goal is self-education, so cozy monthly meetings with food and drink arent part of its culture. Each summer, the circle selects nine books and invites the authors to present their works. Club members who want to graduate are required to read 12 books (selected from any of the circles lists) and pay the $10 membership fee for four years.

Its not necessary to ever meet as a group, says Genevan Ellen Reynolds, class of 2001. If youre on the grounds and theres a discussion, you can go. And theres a picnic the day you graduate and class meetings after you graduate.
After completing the program, graduates often meet a couple of times during Chautauquas summer season and discuss books with a staff person leading the conversation. It isnt like sitting down in somebodys living room, Reynolds says. Its that youre part of a much larger entity with a lot of tradition.

As an avid reader and trained librarian, Reynolds enjoys both kinds of clubs. Shes part of the Sunday Afternoon Reading Club, where members have been known to take field trips to learn more about what theyve read.

After reading Robert Bakkers Raptor Red, they went to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto to see the Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibit. Sex Wars by Marge Piercy prompted a trip to Elizabeth Cady Stantons house in Seneca Falls, and Ithacas Farmers Market and Moosewood Restaurant became the destination after each member read a different work about sustainability and food.

So, clearly, theres more than one way to run a book club. As Sarah Collins of Rochester said: I dont see how you can go wrong.