News

By Ron Hayes

Sorry, guys, but if reading books makes you smart — well, women are probably smarter.
At the Delray Beach Public Library, 56.3 percent of the cardholders are women, 43.7 percent are men.
All the data agree. Women buy more books, they read more books, and they are more likely to read literary fiction than men.
Just take a glance at our area book clubs and you’ll find almost all the members are women and every one is reading, or has read, The Help.
Now meet the Mules, a monthly gathering of manly men who read and discuss manly books and make no apologies for it.
“In 2004, I was doing some research on book club members and I noticed that 95 percent were women,” remembers Steve Leveen, founder of the Levenger book accessory stores. “So out of perverseness I thought, ‘Why can’t we have a book club for guys?’ ”
The group found a name in the humorous verse of poet Ogden Nash: “In the land of mules, there are no rules.”
Seven years later, the Mules are still meeting monthly. Sometimes they gather at the Boheme Bistro in Delray Beach, sometimes at a member’s home. They eat, have a bit of wine and discuss a book.
They’ve read Man’s Search For Meaning and Into The Wild, The Maltese Falcon and No Country For Old Men.
“We’ve had as few as two people and as many as 12,” says Leveen. “We’ve had 20-year-olds to 80-year-olds.”
Last month, nine Mules met around a dining table in the waterfront home of Bob Schmier.
“I’m the president,” says Schmier with a laugh, “but I don’t know if that’s the real title.”
In the land of mules, there are no rules.
They feasted on Chinese food and sushi, sipped red wine and chatted about The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien’s 1990 collection of loosely linked Vietnam War stories.
“I’m in the minority, but I didn’t like the book,” said Sid Turner of Boca Raton. “I had a great deal of trouble finishing it.”
“I couldn’t put it down,” countered Schmier.
“See,” said Turner, “I thought it was the exact opposite.”
New to the group are Alan Kornblau and Mykal Banta, the Delray Beach library’s director and assistant director.
“I thought it was terrific,” said Kornblau, who served as the evening’s facilitator, “tense and very meaningful.”
Banta had read the collection when it first appeared.
“I thought it was the greatest thing I’d ever read,” he recalled. “Now I think it’s a little writerly for my taste.”
At some point, the conversation veered from the book to that controversial war itself, but the tone remained convivial and polite.
The evening ended with chocolate brownies and a question.
What to read next? Graham Swift’s Last Orders? Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage?
“I enjoyed State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett,” Leveen confessed. “It’s kind of a chick lit, but I enjoyed it.”
In the end, they settled on Billy Bathgate, the gangster novel by E.L. Doctorow.     
For information about The Mules, call Alan Kornblau at 266-9488.        

At other book clubs
The Ocean Ridge book club will meet at 5:45 p.m. Oct. 5 in the town hall to discuss By Nightfall, by Michael Cunningham. Information: Call Lisa Burns at 732-2635.

The next meeting of the Manalapan book club will be 3 p.m. Oct. 19 in the town library. For information about the October selection, call Hedy Calman at 585-4126. All are welcome and it’s not necessary to have read the book.