By Mikayla van Loon
Now more than ever, finding ways to connect with people has been imperative to social, mental and emotional health.
And according to Japara House’s Book Club founder and organiser Hilary Milsome, there’s no better way to do that than by sharing deep conversations about books.
The first book club meeting was held online on Monday 23 August and Ms Milsome said it was a great hit with all seven of the inaugural members.
Although hoping to have deep, interesting and passionate conversations about books and their storylines, Ms Milsome said it’s not going to be a place where they aim to solve the world’s problems.
“We’re talking about something that diverts our interest away from the things that might stress us out, and give us something to talk about completely different, completely removed, and hopefully to share,” she said.
“I think the need is more for people to be able to socialise.”
At the moment, Ms Milsome said being able to turn off from the outside world and get lost in a good book provides people with an outlet to forget about the troubles of the world.
Having a book club to then discuss what someone has learnt gives people the much needed social interaction they might be needing at a time like this.
“I think reading too can be a social thing. If you continue to read as you get older, then you continue to have the opportunity to join a book club and have social interaction, which is really important as you get older,” Ms Milsome said.
“If you don’t have social interaction and you don’t have mental stimulation, you’re sitting in front of a TV watching Days of Our Lives and it’s not good for brain health.”
Noticing an influx of people that came to Japara House during the week it was able to open to the public between lockdown five and six, Ms Milsome said she thinks people were really looking for social connection outside of their homes.
“We got a sense that people were very, very keen to socialise and to have contact with other people,” she said.
Japara House has never had a book club before and wanting to join a book club herself, Ms Milsome suggested it as another option for people to get involved in and build relationships.
“We’ve got a lot of other social groups, such as guitar and philosophy and craft groups. But we didn’t have a book club.
“I thought that was sort of a niche that not everyone’s crafty, and not musical. So I thought it was another way of engaging people, and especially with Covid, reading was a thing that people can do at home, not having to go out.
“So it seemed like a good opportunity to bring people with those kinds of interests together.”
While having a common interest in reading, Ms Milsome said each person who attended the first meeting had really diverse interests, from reading biographies to fantasy.
“The one in particular who loves autobiographies and biographies said it has got her interested in her family background.
“Her statement was, she loved reading autobiographies because it taught her a lot about life. And it made her ask questions about life. And it made her look at ways other people had dealt with circumstances in their life.”
Hoping to create some of those conversations each month, the book club plans to meet on the third Monday of every month, the next on being 20 September.
For next month, the club has decided to go with the theme ‘Australia’ so that people can choose any book from any genre that has a connection to Australia.
The 18 October meeting will focus on the book Anxious People by Fredrick Beckman, giving people time to borrow it from the library.
Ms Milsome wants to make this book club accessible to everyone and doesn’t want people to have to purchase each book each month.
The book club will round out the year online and hope to meet in person starting in January next year.
“So starting a book club online, in Book Week just seemed like a really good idea. We can engage people now so that when we do open the door, we’re ready to just hit the ground running with that social interaction that people can have.”
