{"id":167,"date":"2008-07-08T16:01:03","date_gmt":"2008-07-08T16:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2008\/07\/book-clubs-and-community.html"},"modified":"2008-07-08T16:01:03","modified_gmt":"2008-07-08T16:01:03","slug":"book-clubs-and-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/book-clubs-and-community.html","title":{"rendered":"Book clubs and community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m very much an enthusiast  for localism. Lately I\u2019ve been interested in local book clubs, and  thanks in large part to <a href=\"http:\/\/meetup.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">meetup.com<\/a> I\u2019m now juggling no less than three.  In theory, at least. All in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, near my home.<br \/>\nThe only one I\u2019ve attended  so far is the <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/bookclub.meetup.com\/1085\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration:underline\">North Brooklyn Classics Book Club<\/span><\/span><\/a>. Having once started a book club myself,  I admire the scope of their initial ambition. They started early this  year with no less than three months devoted to War &amp; Peace (yes  JMay, I believe they used the Volohonsky &amp; Pevear translation).  I guess that was a bit  too ambitious,  because by the time  I showed up they\u2019d moved on to lighter fare, and I was able to finish <em> The Maltese Falcon<\/em> in two or three days, in time to attend the June  meeting. I\u2019m not so interested in <em>For Whom the Bell Tolls <\/em> (this month\u2019s pick), but in August I think we\u2019re moving on to <em> Mrs. Dalloway<\/em>, and I can get on board with that.<\/span><br \/>\nMeetup.com is a great resource\u2014we\u2019ve  used it to grow the IDP. The Southside Williamsburg Book Club I started  was a driven by decidedly low-tech promotion (flyers taped to streetlights)  despite the fact that it was well into the internet age (2002. I don\u2019t  know what I was thinking). Nonetheless, there was still a lot of interest,  and despite additional handicaps that we met weekly (!) and for some  reason read an inordinate amount of depressing Southern Gothic lit (<em>A  Feast of Snakes, The Violent Bear It Away<\/em>), there were still a good  10-15 people in regular attendance.<\/span><br \/>\nPeople like to connect with  their neighbors, it seems. The discussion doesn\u2019t always gel but it\u2019s  always worth a shot.  If you\u2019re nearby and interested, come join us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m very much an enthusiast for localism. Lately I\u2019ve been interested in local book clubs, and thanks in large part to meetup.com I\u2019m now juggling no less than three. In theory, at least. All in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, near my home. The only one I\u2019ve attended so far is the North Brooklyn Classics Book Club. Having&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-media"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Book clubs and community - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/book-clubs-and-community.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Book clubs and community - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m very much an enthusiast for localism. Lately I\u2019ve been interested in local book clubs, and thanks in large part to meetup.com I\u2019m now juggling no less than three. In theory, at least. All in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, near my home. The only one I\u2019ve attended so far is the North Brooklyn Classics Book Club. Having&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/book-clubs-and-community.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-08T16:01:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Greg Zwahlen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Book clubs and community - One City","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/book-clubs-and-community.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Book clubs and community - One City","og_description":"I\u2019m very much an enthusiast for localism. Lately I\u2019ve been interested in local book clubs, and thanks in large part to meetup.com I\u2019m now juggling no less than three. In theory, at least. All in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, near my home. The only one I\u2019ve attended so far is the North Brooklyn Classics Book Club. Having&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/book-clubs-and-community.html","og_site_name":"One City","article_published_time":"2008-07-08T16:01:03+00:00","author":"Greg Zwahlen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/book-clubs-and-community.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/book-clubs-and-community.html","name":"Book clubs and community - One City","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-07-08T16:01:03+00:00","dateModified":"2008-07-08T16:01:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/6aede7186f63611a529a4a16cce5df54"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/book-clubs-and-community.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/book-clubs-and-community.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/book-clubs-and-community.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Book clubs and community"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/","name":"One City","description":"The Interdependence Project","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/6aede7186f63611a529a4a16cce5df54","name":"Greg Zwahlen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/706\/7066c07c9d69ab14d18489c3b85d90d2x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/706\/7066c07c9d69ab14d18489c3b85d90d2x96.jpg","caption":"Greg Zwahlen"},"description":"Greg Zwahlen began practicing meditation and studying Buddhism in 2000 and joined the ID Project at its inception in 2005. He lives in New York City, where he is also a member of the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York. He has undertaken advanced study over the past few years at the Rime Shedra Rime of New York City, the Mipham Academy under Khenpo Gawang, and the Nitartha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/gzwahlen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}