Island Books Virtual Knitting Book Club.
Lori Robinson
Island Books, Mercer Island
I’ve been a knitter off and on since college and a bookseller at Island Books for going on 9 years. When the owners of Island Books, Laurie and Victor Raisys, came to me with the idea of hosting a Knitting Book Club, I was intrigued. Our first meeting was in the fall of 2019. We would gather around teatime in Island Books (I even brought homemade scones and made a pot of tea) – the members brought their current knitting projects and opinions about the books we read. While I never intentionally chose books that featured knitting, by happy accident our first book, Meet Me at the Museum, by Anne Youngson, DID include knitting.
When the pandemic hit, the Knitting Book Club shifted to meeting on Zoom. We had people pop in and out, a few times someone even joined us from New York state! But a core group developed, not all of whom lived within easy driving distance to Island Books. So, we’ve continued to gather on Zoom, even after it became possible to meet in person again. We’ve had authors Zoom in, people join from their vacations, and in our last meeting a Californian with a Mercer Island connection joined us for the first time.
From the start, the group members have left the choosing of the books up to me. When one of them remarked that they were enjoying being stretched out of their comfort zones, I knew I wanted to make exploring genre a focus. I try to make sure we read a romance, a mystery, a fantasy, a young adult, and something nonfiction over the course of the year. Plus, I also have a weakness for reading seasonally, so we might have a romance in February or a mystery for October. As much as possible I choose books with good audiobook options, since so many crafters like to create while listening to a book.
We meet the second Thursday of the month at 6pm, for an hour. We start off going around and sharing where we are in our current works in progress. You don’t have to be a knitter to join – we welcome all kinds of crafters, and even those who don’t do any (just know there will be about 15 minutes at the beginning of talking about mainly knitting, yarn, and knitting advice!). We spend the remainder of the time sharing our thoughts about that month’s read and wrap up with a short introduction to the next month’s selection.
To check out past and future selections, go to the Island Books website www.islandbooks.com. Under the “Events” option go to Book Clubs, and then Virtual Knitting Book Club. That will take you to the page with the dates and selections and links to register on Zoom for the book club. Right now, I’m ahead and have the book selections up for the rest of the year. For August we’ll be reading No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister, my favorite book of 2023. I think this will be a great discussion!
