Page Turners: Fox Hollow Book Club is a fun, casual club

There's a fun, casual book club that has been meeting for almost two years now, most often in New Fairfield. Carolyn Christesen told me its unofficial name is the Fox Hollow Book Club.

Christesen lives in New Fairfield and started the club as a way to rebuild her social life closer to home.

"It's very personal for me," she said. "After my divorce, I found my social network fell apart. Most of my friends were in Westchester (N.Y.), and I needed to do something here."

She called a few people she knew to see who'd be interested in starting a book club. Christesen even found one member thanks to a family's dog.

"I ran into Kathy Hearty when I returned her dog. I thought I was rescuing the dog, but it was just visiting neighbors, looking for treats," Christesen laughed. She learned that Hearty loved to read and now says, "Kathy's our biggest cheerleader."

Most of the members live in New Fairfield, but one lives in New Milford. There are nine women in the club. Most of them make it to most of the meetings, although with nine members, the club still has good discussions even if one or two can't make a particular meeting.

Fox Hollow Book Club meets roughly every other month, year-round, at members' homes. A meeting during the summer is likely to take place poolside.

"We're a relaxed book club," Christesen said. "We don't take ourselves too seriously."

The club reads all kinds of books, both fiction and nonfiction -- "whatever looks interesting," Christesen said.

She even started a Web site for the club, http://foxhollowbookclub.webs.com/, as a way for members to keep track of what they've read and give them a place to record their thoughts on the books. Not all the members use it, and Christesen said the site needs to be updated, but it has elements that may prove useful to the club in the future.

Meetings generally take place on Friday nights and don't have a strict format.

"It's really very loose," Christesen said. "We drink wine, talk about the book a little, catch up on each other's lives, talk about the book some more."

Sometimes the refreshments will be related to themes in the book selection, but often the books don't lend themselves to such tie-ins. Two that did were "Water for Elephants," by Sara Gruen, when the club's snacks included peanuts, and "Memoirs of a Geisha," by Arthur S. Golden, when refreshments included Asian treats and sushi.

"There are no rules," Christesen said. "We have snacks and start talking."

The club has had an annual holiday party each year, the most recent one including husbands and significant others as guests.

Books are selected at each meeting for discussion at the following meeting. The members gather around a laptop, consider recommendations from friends and information they find online, and pick the next book. They've found www.bookmovement.com to be a helpful site for book suggestions.

It's clear the Fox Hollow Book Club has enriched the lives of its members. "I'm so happy that we have this," Christesen said. "I really enjoy the company of these women. We've formed a good bond. Everyone has become friends. Most of the members agree it's a girls' night out and most come to most of the meetings."

To have your book club featured in Page Turners, send an e-mail to cmueller@newstimes.com with "Book club" in the subject line. Please include a daytime phone number. Follow Carolyn Mueller at http://twitter.com/CarolynMNT.