Wellington’s Own…Women’s Book Club!

Many of you may have seen on the Facebook Page that some of the residents of The Wellington community founded a Women’s Book Club. We asked Nicole Tripodi some questions since we wanted to feature the Women’s Book Club on our blog page and let you know what it’s all about!

1. When did the book club start?

The book club started just a few months ago. Danielle, one of our founding members, came up with the original idea and she and I met to organize it after finding each other on the Wellington Fan Page. We created flyers to recruit other members and posted them around the buildings. Now, we have a great group of about seven women that meet once a month.

2. Where and what do you do at the meetings?

We meet in a member’s apartment each month. We rotate “hostesses.” The hostess usually provides light snacks and drinks. The drink of choice seems to be wine. It is the hostess’s duty to choose the date, the book, and invite the group (by email or evite). We try to get the group’s input when scheduling dates, which takes a lot of communication, but it allows us to try and meet when everyone’s available. Our meetings have typically lasted about 2 hours as we discuss the book and get to know each other. Here’s an excerpt of an e-mail I sent to the group about our last meeting (not everyone was able to attend).

• Everyone enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird and we had a great discussion on the 50^th anniversary of the book’s publication, the author’s mysterious life, the need for justice vs. the need for equality and whether they can co-exist, and of course Boo Radley, Scout, Atticus, and the other lovable (and also the not-so-lovable) characters.
• Mimicking a scene from the book, Sandra served up a delicious homemade pound cake (among other tasty treats) to emulate a Southern society ladies’ luncheon.
• We got to watch the night sky develop from Sandra’s beautiful “penthouse” on the eighth floor and met her friendly cat, Ollie. Great discussion and great hosting!

3. What type of books does the book club read?

We prefer fiction that’s no more than 300 pages long. So far, we’ve read The Black Dahlia and To Kill a Mockingbird. The book for our next meeting is The Life of Pi, and we’re planning to meet to discuss it August 24^th.  The book is an easy and adventurous read about a boy stranded at sea with a hyena, a tiger, an orangutan, and a zebra. The end will leave you with a muddled sense of reality and, hopefully, many questions! I’m pretty excited about it (it was my choice).

4. How does the group pick out the next read?

The next hostess has the privilege of choosing the next book! So, at the end of each meeting, we will ask for volunteers to host. When we have a volunteer, we will ask her to provide the next read. We maintain a list of books that members are interested in, but of course the hostess can choose her own. Sometimes she asks for group input, but the choice is totally up to her.

5. Who can join?

Women who call The Wellington “Home” and like to read! We seem to have a lot of cat-people in the group for some reason. We could use a bit of balance, so dog-people are encouraged to apply!

6. How do contact you in order to join the book club.

You can email me at nicoletripodi@hotmail.com or Danielle at Danielle.todd@gmail.com. You’ll be added to our mailing list, so even if you don’t make it to the next meeting, we’ll keep you updated until you are ready to join us. Sometimes members don’t finish the book, and that’s ok. They are welcome to join the meeting, but be aware we’ll probably reveal the ending!

Photo by SoniaT 360.