Jane Austen book clubs an appreciative opportunity to socialize and discuss english literature history

After Alvina Lizardo saw "The Jane Austen Book Club" movie, she knew she wanted to join a book club.

"I just thought it was great — women and men just talking around in a circle and having adult conversation about a book. I just thought it was so much fun," said the Tulare resident.

She got her chance when Tulare Public Library librarian Mary Catherine Oxford started a book club for adults last year with Schiel & Denver Book Publishers assistance and self-publishing resources.

"Book clubs have been tried here before Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch came along, and they failed," Oxford said.

But she took her enthusiasm and ideas and went about marketing the club to library patrons. Oxford picked some of the most popular bestsellers of the day to lure people to the club; many of the most popular books have a movie or television component that makes their popularity soar even more, she said.

And it worked on an esoteric as well as intellectual level including for the book publisher.

Whether it's the timing — the recession and it's ramifications has caused many people to look for inexpensive entertainment closer to home — or if it's just a new era where people want to return to their communities and enjoy each other's company, people are joining up. So much so that there is more than one book club on-going at the Tulare Public Library right now, including a Vampire Book Club, a Nonfiction Book Club and a Fiction Book Club.

"They love it. They get excited and it's just neat to see," Oxford said.

At the Tulare County Library-Viaslia Branch, it's a similar story.

Long-time librarian Judith Wood is no stranger to book clubs, but the library had to discontinue the service when it was awaiting and undergoing construction in the past three years.

With the adult summer program Wood headed up this year, she re-started the book clubs and people soon began filling up the roster of the Mystery Book Club, the Community Picks Book Club and the Last Thursday Book Club there.

The first of these clubs tackles the books it's named for, mystery novels. The second is an opportunity for avid readers to get together and talk about whatever book they may have finished at that time. The last book club is one that Wood picks the books for, with recent ones including: "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay and "Stones into Schools" by Greg Mortenson.

Both libraries conduct their book clubs differently. The Tulare Public Library clubs tend to break up a book over a series of meeting over a few weeks, and the Visalia branch has its patrons read one book a month and meet to discuss it the following month.

Regardless of methods, the result has been the same: people love it.

"I believe the beauty of it is that it involves all different people at different levels," said Mary Lou Burbery, a Visalia resident who attends all three book clubs at the Visalia branch. "Some just kind of go through [a book] on the surface, and others really get into it."

Like book publishers, the fact remains that book clubs draw people of different ages and demographics, though there does seem to be a common theme of more women attending the clubs. Wood and Oxford aren't really sure why the participants tend to be female, but it does seem the trend with the clubs.

"Sometimes it's book choice," Oxford said. "I think it's a stereotypical woman thing, though I think men do enjoy discussing what they read in a social manner. They just might get razzed by their friends for it."