Published: August 15, 2009 09:03 pm      

Sam Houston Book Club celebrating 50 years

The Sam Houston State University Women’s Book Club is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and is seeking new members to keep the club going.

Founded in 1959 by Helen Wheat, SHSU Library Director of Technical Services, the club initially consisted of wives of SHSU faculty members, and was initially referred to as the Faculty Wives Book Club.

As the club grew and began to incorporate faculty and staff members, the name was changed to the SHSU Women’s Book Club.

The club’s purpose was to select and discuss books that were of interest to all members, and to promote a greater understanding of literature. The initial selections in the late 1950s and early 1960s were classics, but in recent years the club has begun selecting critically acclaimed bestsellers by authors such as Cormac McCarthy, Michael Chabon and Khaled Hosseini.

The club traditionally consisted of 25-30 women in the SHSU Women’s Group, which held several social functions throughout the year. In recent years, membership has dropped slightly due to the absence of the women’s group, leading the club to open its doors to all women, regardless of any affiliation with the university.

“We no longer just cater to women from Sam Houston,” said Marjorie Rex, who has been a member of the club since 1962 and president of the club since 1970. “We cater to any women who desire to participate in a book discussion club.”

The group meets the third Monday of every month except July and December at 7:30 p.m. in the home of one of the club’s members. They then discuss that month’s book and possible future reading selections.

“One member of the group leads the discussion and we take turns each month, so that most of the members at one time or another during the year are leading a book discussion,” Rex said.

Every club member is invited to bring selections before the group for possible reading. When a book is chosen, it is added to a yearly schedule, and the member who volunteers to lead the discussion then does research on the book and its author in order to broaden and deepen the discussion.

Rex has kept a running tally of the books read by the club and said that in her 47 years as a member she has now read a total of over 500 books.

“I consider them all good books,” she said. “Some are better than others, but I think they’re all worthy of reading.”

Rex said the club is looking for new members.

“We would love to have new members,” she said. ‘It has to be people that want to read want to be involved in discussion of books, but we would very much like to have new members.”

Rex said she attributes the 50 year life of the club to the spirit of its members, who are always ready to dive into a new book.

“I think it’s lasted so long because the women who are in it realize the worth of constant reading and most of us in this group feel like we get a whole lot more from a book if we read with the intention of discussing it and we participate in the discussion,” she said. “I’m sure there are a lot of things that I would not have read had it not been for the club.”