The Haines Library Book Club may sound like a cliquish title, but the group isn’t a club in the traditional sense of the word.
“I like calling it a group,” said Evelyna Vignola, “because a club feels like a membership kind of thing. But it’s just very casual and doesn’t feel like anybody is excluded. Everybody is welcome.”
Vignola has been participating in the library book club for five years. The group meets once a month during the winter to share their thoughts on the chosen work, usually selected by organizer Debbie Gravel.
“I’m not much for participating in things in this town, but the book group is easy and it exposes you to books you might not normally pick up on your own,” Vignola said. “It’s very low-key. Everybody gets a chance to speak, and then the more talkative ones end up talking more. You always learn more about the book by hearing other peoples’ perspectives.”
This month’s book is “The Storms of Denali” by Nicholas O’Connell, a novel the author describes as a disaster epic in the tradition of John Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air” and Sebastian Junger’s “The Perfect Storm.”
“My husband picked it up and finished it in a day,” Gravel said.
The group will discuss “The Storms of Denali” at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 20. Copies are available at the library. April’s book is Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.”
Gravel said the group averages about 7-8 participants. People shouldn’t feel pressured to show up with some complex literary analysis of the text, she and Vignola stressed.
“There are some people who have been teachers or English teachers even, and they bring a more intellectual point of view to the book that goes beyond whether they liked it or not, and that’s always interesting,” Vignola said. “We’re all reading for pleasure, for sure.”
Participants aren’t obligated to come every month. If there’s a book someone finds particularly interesting or they would like to talk about, that person should feel encouraged to come, even if it is just once, Vignola said.
The group mainly reads popular fiction. Past books that Vignola particularly enjoyed included “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, “Blonde Indian” by Ernestine Hayes and “The Hours” by Michael Cunningham.