Arts and Entertainment

Read the Book Book Club shares the love of stories at Alton Mill Arts Centre

September 24, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

An unusual and somewhat fledgling book club, the Read the Book Book Club is holding its fifth meeting in October. They meet at the historic Alton Mill every six weeks, which gives each participant time to choose and read the whole book and even prepare an appropriate costume to match the book’s theme.

Their Roman times study, based on the book SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard, brought to light much they did not know or realize. For example, the strong similarities there were between how similarly Romans dealt with individual power as politicians do in our present-day society – with corruption and self-interest, but where a few were conscious of their roles as Consuls or in the Senate.

“All our members all agreed that the parallels are overwhelming. Also agreed that Hollywood does a terrible job of portraying Roman life,” said Wolf Raymer, who runs the book club.

For that meeting, one reader brought his Roman coin collection to the meeting. The coins are from the 2nd and 3rd Centuries CE. He gave each of them one of the coins.

“We all agree that it is important to read books. So, in this book club, we appreciate people who understand the subtleties behind the books,” said Raymer. “Our first one was on the American Revolution.”

The learning curve about Nikola Tesla brought to bear two books. Tesla, whose difficult life did not curb his designing and creating a great many inventions

The book club’s interest and research into AI presented a very serious book, “Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT, and the Race That Will Change the World.”

Next was a story about Christopher Columbus, having been rejected by everyone else to whom he had appealed for funding to brave the ocean and travel to what was an expected discovery of another path to Asia, but instead, landed him and his crew in Cuba in 1492.

The story goes that the queen agreed if he could make an egg stand on end, which he did. What really matters about this well-kept story, in addition to Columbus’ successful arrival to this continent, is that centuries later came “Tesla’s Egg of Columbus.”

Nikola Tesla’s egg led to water designs essential to our own modern water use. In addition, as a side note, Tesla was named one of the 100 most significant figures of all time by Time Magazine in 2013.

The Alton Mill Arts Centre has provided the perfect place for a book club to enjoy coming together every six weeks. Raymer was enthusiastic about the support from the mill’s general manager and partner, Martin Kouprie.

The next subject for the Book Club is Canada’s history and an invitation to readers to choose their favourite Canadian. Tommy Douglas, the founder of Medicare, universal public healthcare, came naturally. Another person chose George Chuvalo. And more will no doubt come.

Raymer commented that the group usually looks to set a maximum of 12 people per meeting. This assures that there will be time enough for everyone to speak.

They are still looking for other people who love to read to join them. If there are too many to stay at 12, Raymer is happy to have two meetings, one after another, on close but separate days.

There have been surprises along the way, like how much they are enjoying the conversations. Raymer made the point, “We’ve forgotten to just have conversations about interesting subjects. Everyone is really enjoying this,”

For their next topic, he would like to talk about China, where he spent some time, even long enough to speak some Mandarin.

BookLore owner Nancy Frater has been promoting Redwood by historian Ben Macintyre, a spy book based on true stories and set in 1981 during the violent times after the Iranian Revolution. Tense stuff but largely true.

Christmas is coming too, and Raymer was clear that people can bring their favourite Christmas stories.

“We’ll be doing something for Christmas,” Raymer said.

Meetings run from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at the Alton Mill, with $10 per person, donated to the mill.

Anyone wanting to join the club can call Raymer at 647-509-7888.

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