Fraternal Group Launches Book Club

By Heidi Schlumpf -- Publishers Weekly, 9/18/2007 7:12:00 AM

The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s fraternal and service organization, has launched an online book club for its 1.5 million members. Dubbed “The Supreme Knight’s Book Club,” it was the brainchild of the organization’s top official, himself an avid reader.

“The idea of the book club is to introduce our members, their families and all Catholics to books that will help them grow in their faith,” said Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson. “The books chosen are designed to help readers build both their interior spiritual life and the practice of putting that faith into action.”

Anderson, along with two other Knights employees, chooses each month’s selection. The first was Parish Priest, a biography of Knights founder Father Michael McGivney (Morrow, 2006); last month’s was By Their Works (HarperCollins, 2006), featuring profiles of Knights members. But not all selections have a Knights connection. September’s featured book is the newsworthy, newly released writings of Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light (Doubleday).

Each month, the book club selection is highlighted, either with an excerpt or author interview, in the organization’s monthly magazine, Columbia, which is sent to its entire membership. The article announces the monthly real-time online book chat with the Supreme Knight, who is often joined by an author. Transcripts of the online discussions are available online at www.kofc.org.

“Members, and even nonmembers, have responded very enthusiastically,” said Andrew Walther, the Knights’ director of media relations, who helps coordinate the club. For publishers, the book club has the added benefit of targeting a harder-to-reach demographic: men. “We try to pick books that deal with men’s spirituality in particular,” said Columbia editor Tim S. Hickey. “But we know that often it’s our members’ wives that are reading the magazine, too.”