Barbara Vandenburgh has made a career out of her lifelong love of storytelling. She worked for years as an arts journalist at the Arizona Republic and USA Today.
But her own story starts way back when she was a kid and spent countless hours in the comfort of a bookstore. As she got older, she came to realize that a bookstore with a bar can be extra comfortable.
And that, she recently told The Show, is how she ended up as the host of the First Draft Book Club at Changing Hands Bookstore.
Full conversation
BARBARA VANDENBURGH: They recognized me as a nerd. They were looking for their overly committed book nerd, yes.
SAM DINGMAN: Yes. So what made you fall in love with books originally?
VANDENBURGH: I just deeply admire storytelling and storytellers. My mom would take me to the library, sometimes literally every day. She would sit me down with a stack of books and we’d work through it together. And so she really, really encouraged me to be a reader.
DINGMAN: So when you set out to begin this book club, that changing hands, had you been in other book clubs?
VANDENBURGH: I had not been in other book clubs. I had been an English major, and I had taken a lot of creative writing classes when I was in college. And part of the appeal of a book club was I deeply missed that dynamic of — like I’m just such a dork. I wanted school to never end.
And this was sort of like an extension of school as an adult. Like, you have your assignment. You’ve got the book that you’ve got to read. You’ve got to show up with your notes and participate in the classroom discussion. And I just really felt like that was the only thing I was ever good at, was showing up for class with my book marked up and something to say. And so to get to continue that has been just a delight for me.
DINGMAN: That’s so interesting. I don’t know that I had considered the idea that starting a book club could come from a place of almost nostalgia.
VANDENBURGH: Yeah, I definitely think there’s nostalgia to it. But also, I longed for that throughout life, to have this space where people are thinking about and talking about a piece of art or media in a critical, thoughtful way. It’s hard to have an in-depth, structured conversation about the historical significance of the books or the setting and the tone and the way that the book is written. People don’t in the wild think and talk that way.
DINGMAN: So you are given this golden opportunity to create a book club. How did you prepare for the first one? Like how did you pick the first book?
VANDENBURGH: So it’s interesting. I had gone through kind of like a rough time. My mom died, actually, shortly before book club started. And I’d actually stopped reading for about a year. I could not finish a book. Changing Hands opened in Phoenix, and I had just started to dip my toe into reading again. And they asked me about the book club. And part of the reason I said yes was, “OK, well, this will force me to read.”
And so the first book we chose just happened to be one of the first books I was able to finish reading, because that’s all I had. And it was a book called “Descent” by Tim Johnston. Fantastic book. It’s a literary thriller. And part of the reason I was able to get through it is that it was just a page turner. And so that first one was literally just “This was the book I was able to finish in time. So we’re doing this one.”
DINGMAN: Sure. Did you find that your relationship to reading that book was different, having come back to reading after this experience of losing your mom?
VANDENBURGH: Yeah. There was a healing quality to it, because it felt like I had lost books as well. So I don’t mean to sound goofy about it, but there was almost a spiritual component to it.
DINGMAN: That doesn’t sound goofy at all.
VANDENBURGH: So yeah, it was really meaningful. And book club as a whole has been really meaningful. I still see it as part of that healing process coming out of that deep depressive spiral.
DINGMAN: Yeah. At that first meeting — or in other meetings since then, over these last almost nine years now — did you speak at all about where you were personally as you were reading the book? Was that something you introduced as part of the discussion, or did you keep the conversation more focused just on the book itself?
VANDENBURGH: I did talk about it. I remember we read one book, “Imagine Me Gone” by Adam Haslett, which had a character who had deep depression and mental illness issues. And there were conversations about suicide and antidepressants and various medications that this character with depression was on.
And so I believe in that conversation, I opened up pretty deeply about having experienced a depressive episode where I struggled. With some of these things. And so I like to create an environment where people are not ashamed. I’ve had people in book club conversations talk about past childhood trauma or sexual abuse or domestic violence. I try to create a space where people feel safe.
DINGMAN: Wow. So how do you navigate those moments in a book club meeting when things might go in a particularly harrowing or intense or sad direction? Do you allow that to go in whatever direction it seems to want to organically go, or does there come a point where you feel like you have to try to steer things back to the book? What sort of active listening and facilitating are you doing in those moments?
VANDENBURGH: Just creating a supportive atmosphere and listening is really, really important. Its an empathetic, caring group. And so when you let those organic moments sort of flower and take shape, it always creates something special. We always end up back “on track.” But I feel like the reason we come to this space in person to talk about a book in a group together is for these kind of organic moments more than its about the book itself.
Like book club, so much of it is just about wanting and building community with other people. There are people who were strangers when they came in, and now they sit at the same table every time, and they go out to dinner, and they hang out outside a book club, and they wouldn’t have met without that. So I think those organic moments of opening up are really essential to creating those kind of friendships and that sense of community.
DINGMAN: Sure. And I’m thinking of other social spaces where people come together around interests. And there’s something about the emphasis on story, to go back to what you were saying at the beginning of our conversation, that seems like it makes people feel like it’s a safe space to talk about the story that’s in the book but also a safe space for their story.
VANDENBURGH: Yeah, absolutely. And we have a microphone, right? Its a large common space. We pass a microphone around. Some people will talk about their histories and their experiences in the world that are sometimes very painful, very private, into a microphone in front of a room of like 70 people. And its a very vulnerable thing. So I take very seriously my job of creating a safe, welcoming space for people to be able to have those experiences, because I don’t want anybody walking away from that feeling bad about it.
DINGMAN: Wow, it barely feels like we’re talking about a book club anymore.
VANDENBURGH: It sounds like therapy now! But that conversation will organically develop if you get a bunch of smart, thoughtful readers in a room together to talk about a book in which those elements are at play. So it does just happen really naturally. You don’t have to force it, and people don’t feel confronted or bummed out to have that conversation.
DINGMAN: Yeah. Well, we have gotten very philosophical in this conversation about book clubs, and I appreciate it very much.
VANDENBURGH: It is my absolute pleasure, thank you so much for having me.
