Northfield, Get Your Book On

Northfield loves books.

Minneapolis might trade the title of “most literate city” annually with Seattle, but it could be that Northfield has them both beat. And people here don’t just cuddle with their Kindles in coffee shops to get out of the rain.

Northfielders love to engage with their literature—and each other.

Consequently, the city is bursting with book clubs, and there’s a niche for nearly every taste and interest.

Joining a book club is a way for newcomers to connect in Northfield, according Phil Eaves, a retired minister who moved to Northfield six years ago with his wife, Barbara.

“We were newbies to town, and we wanted to meet and engage with folks about things that matter,” he said.

So he stopped in downtown bookstore , got to talking with owner Jerry Bilek, and started a book club. 

“It was a great way to get to know Northfield,” Eaves said. “It’s fun to hear others’ reflections alongside your own. You may not agree, but there’s a wonderful respect, and people form bonds."

The former River City Bookstore also has a book club that survived its demise; the two bookstores became a first stop and supply station for book club enthusiasts, which in turn spawned others.

Where there's books, there's book clubs

The is another starting point.

“When you first move to town, and you don’t know many people yet, it’s hard to find a group,” says Joan Ennis, reference librarian at the Northfield library.

So she started a group that meets at the library once a month, designed for fans of women writers. Ennis steers selections toward books that are in the library system, so no one has to buy books.

While Ennis—herself a writer and a judge for the Minnesota Book Awards—makes her expertise available, she says the dozen or so women who regularly attend have chosen to tackle such timely tomes like Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna, and reached back to classics like O Pioneers by Willa Cather.

This group continues to meet at the library, eschewing socializing with food and drink, to stay focused on the books. However, another library-sponsored group has morphed into a potluck held bimonthly at members’ homes.

“We’ve been going for 12 years, and have gotten comfortable with each other,” says librarian Barb Johnson, who moderates the mystery writers’ group. Over casserole and dessert, they have taken on everyone from modern vampire chronicler Charlayne Harris to classic Sherlock Holmes.

They are currently reading through the novels of James Patterson, creator of black detective/psychologist Alex Cross. (Patterson’s panoply of fairy-tale titles like Along Came a Spider and Jack and Jill, sound simplistic, but take on tough issues like the sinister spread of the Russian mob, and American indifference the civil wars in Darfur and Nigeria).

Where there's readers, there's book clubs

The Book Club is also accessible to newcomers—if you come early enough to secure a seat at their lively monthly meetings. These women take their literature—and their congenial, respectful discussions—seriously.

February’s meeting featured a predictably insightful examination of Ayaan Hirsi Ai’s harrowing Infidel, but sometimes there are surprises.

Last month’s discussion of Rock Island Line by David Rhodes had an additional layer of illumination, thanks input from Rhodes’ middle school teacher, who was visiting the group.

There are groups for special interests—some so subterranean as to be known only by reputation.                                                                                                                                                           Rumors of mother/daughter groups, gay/lesbian groups, and a group for men interested in baseball, and a “champagne and murder” group are rampant; only their members know for sure.

The Margaret Evans group at has 50 members, has existed continuously for the past century, and is seriously selective.

One special interest group that is open to all is the Just Good Books Club, sponsored by and organized by Ann Iijima, an associate director of alumni relations at Carleton College, who began the group when she moved to town about a year ago.

“I wanted a book club interested in issues of food sustainability, environmental concerns, and simpler living with intention,” says Iijima, whose husband is Miles Baake, retired director of Carleton’s Arboretum.

The group has a revolving core of some two dozen members, who meet bimonthly and take turns choosing the facilitator and volume for the next meeting. For two hours, Iijima says, “we share whether or how the book has changed how we think about our lives—it gets pretty intense.”

The group has read authors like Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and such titles as Where our Food Comes From and Edible History of Humanity.

When she read A Different King of Luxury: Japanese Lessons in Simple Living and Inner Abundance, “I turned off my TV and started learning to fiddle,” says Iijima.

Unlike the majority of clubs, Iijima says JGBC’s membership is roughly half women and half men; men are generally under-represented. Perhaps some, like a certain group of Carleton and staff and faculty men, just fly below the radar.

“There are about seven of us who read mostly economics, philosophy, and political science,” says Dan Bergeson, director of auxiliary services at Carleton. “We recently read Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know by Robert Paarlberg. But we also read Ian McEwan’s Atonement---that was a heavy duty novel.”

No chick-lit for this group, which rotates hosting duties among members’ homes.

“We also read Reinhold Niebuhr: On Politics, Religion and Christian Faith,” written by Carleton religion professor Richard Crouter. “We had the pleasure of the author coming to speak at our meeting."

There's a book club for everyone

While most book clubs strive for a balance of sociability and substance, libations and learning, at least one deliberately leans to the lighter side.

“We call ourselves ‘The Literary Ladies,’ but we could be called ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,’” says Anne Etter, a CPA, MBA and mother of two. The group of young, professional women met via their children, liked each other, and decided to regularly discuss any books they decided are “entertaining and fun.” 

In the past year, the group has explored alternate universes with Jasper Fforde, examined Einstein’s God with NPR’s Krista Tippett; and is planning a sci-fi excursion this month into The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.

But Etter says that it’s her travelling companions that make the journeys worthwhile.

“What’s more frustrating than to read a completely mind-blowing book and have no one to talk it over with?”