For the Love of Reading: The Newton Houses Book Club
By Caity O’Brien
NEWTON, MA — For many people, reading is an escape. A chance to shed the demands of daily life and immerse oneself in mythical lands, fantastical futures, or in the thick of danger and suspense. We seek comfort and companionship in the stories we read, aligning ourselves with the characters we come to know and care about. We laugh, we cry, we gasp at a well-plotted twist. And while doing all of this is fun on one’s own, reading can also be a joyous shared experience.
The members of the Newton Houses Book Club certainly know this to be true. For almost three years, they’ve been meeting on weekend afternoons in the spacious and homey living room of one of the houses, books and guided questions in hand. The club is led by Brett Pangburn, a lawyer-turned 6th grade English teacher, who has over a decade of experience teaching students from a variety of backgrounds and learning needs. After the role was recommended to him by his wife through the mom of a house member, Pangburn says, “I knew that I loved reading and talking about books with kids, so I thought discussing books with adults would be an interesting challenge. I was right!”
The club has read about 15 books together by a variety of authors spanning across several genres. Pangburn points to an early favorite: Warriors: Into The Wild by Erin Hunter, a book about a house cat who joins a clan of feral cats in their adventures. Through “distinct personalities and realistic challenges … the cats became almost human. … Ttheir struggles were relatable,” Pangburn says, and the house members enjoyed discussing them. Their most recently finished book, The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly, was also a favorite, sparking discussions about “what technology might make possible, what it means to embrace the present, and the moral implications of time travel.”
Between book club sessions, club members are tasked with reading assigned passages on their own and answering guided questions that Pangburn prepares. At one house, it is a familiar sight to see book club members huddled together in the living room, taking turns reading aloud to one another and helping each other answer their guided questions. One house member, Nina, says, “I like to read with [my friends] and book club is fun for me.” As the house members meet back up again with their book club companions, there is palpable excitement at getting to share their thoughts and dive deeper into the story.
“Book club discussions are really just another way of creating community,” Pangburn shares. Each session starts with a personal check-in, allowing the residents to share what’s been going on in their lives, bonding them in not just the stories they read, but in the everyday happenings of daily life like work, birthdays, family matters, and more. From there, book discussion begins and with it, lively discussion and interpretations of characters and plot points, with the house members making personal connections to the stories. All in all, Pangburn says that in running the book club, “it’s very clear to me that I’m visiting a special place.”
We hope the Newton Houses Book Club continues to run strong and maybe even inspire similar clubs to pop up in our other houses!
