Sisterfriends who brunch: an annual birthday celebration over Sunday brunch becomes the catalyst for a D.C.-area book club.

Each year, for the past seven years, members of the unofficial February Friends Birthday Group get together over Sunday brunch to celebrate their mutual birthdays. With each gathering, the group has grown to include friends who were not born in February, but who, nonetheless, want to partake in the annual birthday celebration.

"We often discuss books among many other topics at the birthday brunches" says Shelia Little, a senior program analyst with the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, who is one of the group's original members. When a member at the annual brunch suggested getting together regularly to read and discuss books, Little--an avid reader since childhood--purchased Circles of Sisterhood: A Book Discussion Group Guide for Women of Color (Writers & Readers Publishing, 1996), a book group primer by Pat Neblett, to determine what was involved in starting a book club.

"After selecting a name, drafting rules to establish a framework and extending invitations to a number of women, we met for the first time in July of 1998," says Little. Of the 11 women at that initial meeting, nine joined the Sunday Brunch Book Club, including Barbara Matthews, Lee Folia Fletcher, Vivian Hart and Deloise Myrick of the February Friends Birthday Group, and "the group has been growing and getting stronger ever since."

Feasting on Discussion

Members in this hearty book group come together at restaurants, hotels and military bases that offer Sunday brunch in the Washington, D.C., and metropolitan area. They munch on bacon, cheese grits, omelettes, salmon and waffles, and sip champagne and mimosas, while examining an assortment of genres and titles not exclusive to African American authors.

"We discovered that our diverse backgrounds, ages and experiences made the meetings more interesting and helped to expand the scope of the books we read," Little says. "The fact that we hold the meetings in restaurants or other dining establishments reflects the busy lives of the women and their desire to commit to one more thing that gives them pleasure." Because the majority of the club's 23 members have other obligations to their families, churches, sororities and other business and professional organizations, "the ladies are happy to socialize, eat and relax while someone else does the cooking and waiting on them for a change;' adds Little. "Other than getting to the restaurant, they don't have to go through any additional preparation to facilitate a book club meeting." Their amended bylaws require that all members RSVP for each meeting and be billed for their meal should they reserve a seat and then fail to show up.

The Keepsake Goodie Bag

The facilitators of the book club often devise creative formats to make the book discussions both fun and interesting, and provide giveaways for each member that have some connection to the book

During the discussion of The Secret Life of Bees, a novel by a white author that contains a trio of black women protagonists who are beekeepers, some group members found the idea of a black woman pouring spit from a snuff jar on the shoes of three white men in the South in the early 1960s a bit far-fetched. As a memento of the book discussion, members received aprons decorated with bees on them and bee pins. Similarly, members received white, lace handkerchiefs after discussing Lalita Tademy's slave family saga, Cane River (Warner Books, 2001); lavender tea was given away when the women discussed Sweet Lavender (Motion Pub., 2003) by Terry A. O'Neal. After the discussions of Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers (Multnomah, 2001) and Church Folk by Michele Andrea Bowen (Walk Worthy Press, 2002), the group walked away with Bible key chains and church fans, respectively. At the mention of mango margaritas in Pearl Cleage's novel I Wish I Had a Red Dress (William Morrow & Company, 2001), the discussion facilitator served mango margaritas before and during the book discussion. And when the club invited author Tracy Price-Thompson to discuss her debut novel, Black Coffee (Villard, 2002), the conversation reached a happy boiling point when members received magnets that bore the Sunday Brunch Book Club name and contained a special saying about coffee.

Literary Retreat

For the past five years, the women have journeyed to a large house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for a weekend retreat each September. "The retreat provides members with an opportunity to have more intimate conversations to get to know their book club sisters better" says Little. "Initially, our common interest was books, but as we continued to meet over time, we have bonded and formed strong friendships with members, some of whom were strangers until they joined the book club."

Whether relaxing at their annual retreat or celebrating their birthdays in February, these women are now friends who devour a smorgasbord of fine literature at local eateries that offer Sunday brunch.

Pat Houser is a contributing editor at BIBR. If you'd like to have your book club mentioned, e-mail her at [e-mail].

GROUP PROFILE

The Club: Sunday Brunch Book Club Location: Washington, D.C., metropolitan area (D. C., MD and VA)

Book Preferences: Fiction and nonfiction

Number of Members: 23

How Often They Meet: Bimonthly, on the fourth Sunday in January, March, May, July, September and November

Last Book Read: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Penguin Books, January 2003 $14, ISBN 0-142-00174-0

Group Reaction: Favorable

Next Book: Truth Be Told by Victoria Christopher Murray Touchstone, July 2004 $14, ISBN 0-743-25567-4

How They Choose Books: Meeting facilitator selects the book or the meeting facilitator and the hostess collaborate on the book selection