Book club members (l to r) Caren Chesler, Lyndell O'Hara, Eileen Kean and Vicki LaBella. "We excel at food," says club founder Joyce Klein. Photos by Mary Walton

By Mary Walton, literary editor @ Blogfinger

When I moved to Ocean Grove from Philadelphia thirteen years ago, I knew no one in town but my husband and our real estate agent. I had left behind a close-knit book club in Philadelphia. Feeling bereft, I learned of a book club in the Grove. Not taking new members, I was told.

And that was how I came to start the Ocean Grove Book Club with the help of Evie Senchak, who has since moved away. We currently have 16 members and we have read 171 books. That other group having disbanded, we are, as near as I can tell, the oldest and largest book club in town. We meet over dessert in members’ houses, and at the end of each meeting we give that month’s book selection a rating from one to five.

But ours is far from the only club in town. There are four others. Wait! This just in. Pat Betty, owner of the Tranquil Garden Tea Room on Main Avenue, has just this week recruited 10 readers for a fifth group that will meet the second Wednesday of each month.

Ten years ago Joyce Klein was in what was then the Daily Grind with a friend. They fell into conversation with two other Grovers, and a book club was born that today has nine members. The first Tuesday of every month, except Election Day, will find them gathered at a member’s house for dinner and a discussion. The club has no name and no rules. Members don’t even have to read the book, though the majority at least give it a try.

“We may not read the book,” says Joyce, “but we excel at food.”

I can testify to that. I attended their January session in Caren Chesler’s cozy Mt. Hermon home filled with vintage furniture and artifacts. Nibbling hors d’oeuvres, members chose ten books for the coming year. The potluck supper that followed featured Caren’s perfectly sculpted rounds of eggplant parmesan along with a salad, garlic bread and two cakes: a chocolate Bundt cake and a frosted Frosty the Snowman.

I volunteered to come for dinner every month.

Ocean Grove homes tend to have small living rooms. Even when a dozen or more from our large club turn out, we manage to fit. But some book clubs choose to limit their size for convenience and intimacy. With seven members, “We’re like a family,” says Valerie Trembly, who founded “Belles, Books & Candles” going on four years ago.

Valerie is a retired school teacher and she runs BB&C with a firm hand. Members, she says, must live in the Grove. “Nobody wants to drive anywhere,” (meaning past the gates) and also “We like to porch hop.” And members are asked not to attend if they haven’t read the book. “It’s a book club,” Valerie says. “It’s not just a night out.”

Charter member Carol Gilliland, also a retired teacher, agrees that it’s imperative to finish the book. “That’s the purpose of reading. If you didn’t finish it because you didn’t like the subject matter, well, that’s what we’re talking about.”

Reading is a solitary pursuit. So what is the appeal of discussing a book en masse?

“Different people’s insights,” says Valerie. And also, “People get so busy they don’t have time to read as much as they should. A book club keeps you on track.”

Last summer Jeanne Arpert, who had just moved from Glen Rock to become a full time Grover, rounded up some fellow readers. A reading specialist in Little Silver, she felt that “I needed to bring a book club to my life.” Most of the initial members were summer people, but some come back for winter meetings, including a devotee from Nyack. “If you host, you pick the book and you lead the meeting,” says Jeanne.

Just when I thought I had located all the Ocean Grove clubs, the Neptune Library steered me to one founded at Asbury Manor by Marian McKillop. A retired school librarian, Marian told me she had organized perhaps 10 or 12 book clubs over the years. Last September she invited some Asbury Manor residents to form a group. They read a book a month but meet weekly to discuss it.

Most book clubs are composed of women, and those in Ocean Grove are no exception. Perhaps there are some all-male or mixed-gender groups out there, or simply others that I missed. If so, please let Blogfinger know. At the moment, Asbury Manor is the only one I located that boasts a male. Just one, says Marian. But of course the home has “only six or seven men.”

Voting: Margaret Cate, Freddi Castle and Judi Isaksen of the Ocean Grove Book Club