According to Book Club president Sage Dezerin (senior), around 20 dedicated members attend the club each week and around 50 more students signed up at this semester’s involvement fair. Dezerin said the club’s laid-back nature is part of its draw.
Dezerin said members of the club’s e-board make a conscientious effort to create a welcoming space, one that is distinct from the demanding world of academics.
“We try to stray away from being like a class,” Dezerin said. “Everyone seems really comfortable to share in this space. I don’t want to ask too much from our members because I know we’re all full time students on top of this.”
Two-year club member Lila Olberding (sophomore) said the casual atmosphere of the club is in part due to the lack of strict requirements to complete each section of assigned reading.
“There’s no judgement if anybody can’t finish the reading in time for [the meeting that] week,” Olberding said. “Everybody is welcome to still attend the meeting, even if they haven’t read it.”
Olberding said taking reading out of an academic context is essential to enjoying the experience.
“Reading is never going to be a pleasure like watching shows or TikTok,” Olberding said. “You’re never going to have fun reading if all you are reading is intensive. It’s worth it to just sit and enjoy a book.”
Olberding said having the club on campus makes reading easily accessible for all students. According to Olberding, the community which the club provides is something that is not guaranteed in places outside a college campus.
“College is such a great place [since] there’s already so many like-minded, and similar age [people] as you,” Olberding said.
Club secretary Cate Norton (junior), said reading is significant to people’s daily lives and helps people comprehend the world around them.
“Reading is so important because it gives you the critical thinking skills you need to be able to survive,” Norton said.
President Dezerin said the club has worked with organizations on and off campus. According to Dezerin, the club has held collaborative events with the Mary Norton Clapp Library, such as silent book readings and book selections displays. The book club has also taken field trips outside Occidental, including trips to USC two years in a row.
“The biggest [trip] we’ve done was the LA times book fair [at USC],” Dezerin said. “[That] one’s really fun and cool to see […] there’s a bunch of different vendors.”
According to Norton, club members were invited to participate in the selection committee for the 2026-2027 school year. Norton said the the Community Book Program (CBP) selects books with the collective interest of the Occidental Committee in mind, and the selected book becomes required reading for incoming first years. According to Norton, Book Club suggested “Open Throat” by Henry Hoke to be the CBP selection.
“Sabrina [Willison] from SLICE reached out and [said they] would like a student to represent the student body for our community book,” Norton said. “We crowdsourced from our club and we came upon a book we read before, which was ‘Open Throat’.”
Norton said, “Open Throat” was popular among club members.
“It’s a really silly book about a queer mountain lion,” Norton said. “It’s based off of P-22 who lived in the area, everybody ended up liking it on the committee. ”
Norton said First Year Seminar (FYS) professor Jacqueline Elam is the club’s advisor and is teaching the novel this semester. According to Elam, her FYS, “All That Glitters: Life, Literature, and Film in Los Angeles,” focuses on life and culture in LA.
“‘Open Throat’ was the perfect fit for my FYS,” Professor Elam said via email. “Respectfully coexisting with wildlife is an important part of being an Angeleno, and what better way to do that than to get inside the head of one of our local celebrity cats?”
Olberding said the novel is peculiar and outlandish, but there is benefit to reaching outside of your comfort zone, especially pertaining to literature.
“I feel like we’re in such a cancel culture society […] people are very uncomfortable with being uncomfortable,” Olberding said. “It makes it so much more enriching to be able to discuss the book without completely discrediting it.”
Contact Quinn Godfrey at qgodfrey@oxy.edu
