• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Glen Park Association

Up-to-the-minute news from Glen Park

  • Home
  • Glen Park Association
    • About the Glen Park Association
    • Join the GPA
    • GPA Board Contacts
    • Bylaws
    • Neighborhood boundaries
    • Financials
    • GPA Meeting Minutes
  • News Stories
    • Glen Park News
    • Glen Park News archive
  • Greenway
    • About
    • Greenway Plan
  • GPA Grants Program
  • Crime & Safety
  • Contact
    • Contact
    • Volunteer Sign Ups
    • Event Submission
    • Author Submissions

Book lovers have a home at the Rec Center

January 24, 2023 by Bonnee Waldstein

The weekly Book Discussion Group at the Glen Park Rec Center is gaining popularity since it was started in March 2022. There are now thirteen regulars and no one is turned away.

They currently meet Tuesdays from 1 to 3 pm. (Check the new feature in the Glen Park News sidebar for classes and events at the Rec Center, including the most up-to-date seasonal schedule.)

Recreation Leader Joan Gallagher was the force behind establishing the group. “I’d really like for people to know how wonderful these books are, and how different our group is from other ‘book clubs.’”

Most book groups meet once a month and discuss the book in its entirety. At the Rec Center, the group reads a certain number of pages each week. “We’re not in a hurry to finish a book—we really want to discuss it, take it apart and have everybody have a chance to say something until we finish it,” says Gallagher.

The group members cited the weekly schedule as a compelling feature.

“It provides continuity of the book, a richer, deeper experience, and it provides a more profound and enlightened conversation,” observes one member.

Another adds, “You can get a sense of relationship much quicker, a sense of the people in the group. You get to know them and feel comfortable.”

Recommendations about which book to read are rotated among the members and then the rest of them vote. Different people favor different themes or qualities of books—the writing, the character development and the moral arc of the story. They bring in their own experiences and associations to their choices.

In that vein, one member said, “Fiction is real life, fictionalized. Stories from that author’s experience get folded into a fictional framework, but it’s real life with lots of lessons to be imparted.”

Joan Gallagher with current selection.

They read about 75 pages a week until they complete the book, which usually takes four to five weeks.

The group has just finished their eighth selection, “The Island of Missing Trees,” by Elif Shafak, a novel set in Cyprus, which features themes of “belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal,” according to the book jacket. One member said they didn’t know anything about Cyprus and it led them to read up on its history.

One of a few people for whom this book group is their first, was hesitant to join because they didn’t want someone to tell them what to read. They’ve since read books that they wouldn’t have otherwise and finds them fascinating and very enjoyable.

Gallagher likes to liven up the sessions with refreshments that reflect foods featured in the books. For the current selection, in a nod to Cyprus, she brought in baklava and figs (Fig Newtons actually).

The members live in Glen Park as well as quite a few from other neighborhoods—Diamond Heights, Miraloma, Noe Valley, Sunnyside and Pine Lake Park.

They get hold of the books from any number of sources, whether physically from the library or the neighborhood bookstore, Bird and Beckett; or electronically, like ebooks and audiobooks.

When the group was asked, what if you don’t like the book? Gallagher immediately declared, “One Hundred Years of Solitude”! “It was our second book, greatly acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize winner. It was supposed to be a difficult book but we thought we’d take the challenge and indeed it was extremely difficult.” One member had noticed that a particular paragraph in the book was four pages long. Nevertheless, most persisted.

The next selection is “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt, in which one of the main characters is an octopus that befriends someone and endeavors to solve a mystery (really).

Perhaps the group will be inspired to learn everything they can about the octopus next.

Filed Under: Glen Park Rec Center, Rec Center, Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES

Arlington Path Beautification
Saturday, July 19, 10 a.m. to noon
Meet at 300 Mateo (x Arlington) for an exciting day of weeding, watering, seed collecting.
Tools, gloves and good company provided.


2025 Glen Park Night Market poster


 


Monthly cleanup on the Greenway
First Saturday of the Month (usually)
Click here to learn more


Friends of Glen Canyon’s
Glen Canyon Habitat Restoration
Every third Saturday 9:30 a.m to noon
Sign up here

Subscribe to this Newsletter

Sign Up for Glen Park Association News Updates:

* indicates required

Check It Out at the Glen Park Library

Click the above button or here to see all upcoming Glen Park Branch Library events. Subscribe to the Glen Park Library monthly newsletter to get events highlights in your inbox.

Glen Park Rec Center

Glen Canyon Park sign
Click the above button or here to see
the latest Glen Park Rec Center schedule.



Saturdays 3-4:45 p.m.
Questions? Call 415-239-4007


 

Renew Your Glen Park Association Membership for 2025

Join the Glen Park Association and help promote our community’s interests. Together, we can secure improvement funds, publicize neighborhood concerns and strive to speak as one voice on neighborhood and city issues.

Membership in the Glen Park Association is only $10 annually and can be purchased online.

Glen Park Association Advertising Sponsors

JE_Digital Small Space Ad
Diamond Heights Digital Ad
GPA Ad- Perez Construction ad 6.27.22 v Glen Park
moroco
Center for Creative Exploration - adult
JE_Digital Small Space Ad
Diamond Heights Digital Ad
GPA Ad- Perez Construction ad 6.27.22 v Glen Park
moroco
Center for Creative Exploration - adult
previous arrow
next arrow
Shadow

Current Weather & Air Quality

Glen Park featured on…

FacebookSF ChronInstagramTwitter

Join the Glen Park Association on Facebook

Comments Box SVG iconsUsed for the like, share, comment, and reaction icons
Glen Park Association is at Glen Park Greenway.
2 days ago
Glen Park Association

More people are discovering our Glen Park Greenway to Glen Canyon Park!

#glenparkgreenway #glenparksf #sanfrancisco #takeawalk #walk #hike #urban #urbanexplorer #crosstowntrail
... See MoreSee Less

More people are discovering our Glen Park Greenway to Glen Canyon Park!

#glenparkgreenway #glenparksf #sanfrancisco #takeawalk  #walk #hike #urban #urbanexplorer #crosstowntrail
View on Facebook
· Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
View Comments
  • likes love 7
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

0 CommentsComment on Facebook

Glen Park Association is at Glen Park Greenway.
6 days ago
Glen Park Association

Saturday’s Glen Park Greenway Work Party is Cancelled.

“I’m very sorry to say that
we have cancelled our Work Party for this Saturday July 12, along with all organized volunteer activity on the Greenway until further notice.
As you may have read in the news, our fiscal sponsor, San Francisco Parks Alliance (SFPA), has shut itself down. Just as SFPA has shut itself down, the Greenway, as an organized part of SFPA, has also been “shut down.” We are busy looking for a suitable alternative fiscal sponsor that is willing to replace SFPA. That search is going well but it is a slow process. We had hoped to find temporary ways to enable the Greenway project to function responsibly as a community activity without a fiscal sponsor. Sadly, despite our best efforts and the help of many others in Glen Park, we have failed. That is why we must cancel our Saturday Work Party and discontinue future work parties and other organized volunteer activity on the Greenway (like weeding and watering) until further notice. We recognize that the Greenway is public open space and that the organizers of the Greenway project have no control over the activities of you or of anyone else on the Greenway. However, if you do venture onto the Greenway to satisfy your urge for outdoor recreation, please be aware that your activity is not in any way organized or sanctioned by the organizers of the Glen Park Greenway project. I’m well aware of the efforts that many of the
Greenway’s supporters are making to get the Greenway organized with a new fiscal sponsor and I’m confident that this will be arranged within weeks or perhaps a few months.
However long it takes, I will contact you with news of our progress.
Many thanks for all that you do for the Greenway.”

Nicholas Dewar, volunteer Project Director

#glenparkgreenway #glenparksf #sanfrancisco @rafaelmandelmand8 @danielluriesf @crosstowntrail
#crosstowntrail #sfparksalliance #publicspace #nature
... See MoreSee Less

Play
View on Facebook
· Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
View Comments
  • likes love sad 8
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 1

1 CommentComment on Facebook

Wonder what’s stopping just organizing it separate from that non-profit. It seems like the volunteers largely come from Glen Park.

Blog Roll

Coyote Yipps
Friends of Upper Noe Recreation Center
Glen Park Neighborhoods History Project
Open SF History
Sunnyside Conservatory
Sunnyside History
Sunnyside Neighborhood Association
Tramps of San Francisco
Upper Noe Neighbors

Copyright © 2025 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in