Reading experiences from St. Helena book club members

By Dave Stoneberg

ST. HELENA, Calif. — Summer is often thought of as a time for relaxation, vacations and reading, usually novels, romantic and otherwise. Sue Cottrell has lived in St. Helena since 1969 and raised her family in town, including her daughter, District 3 Napa County Supervisor Anne Cottrell. Sue has been a member of a local book club since 1985, and recently she thought it would be fun to ask her book club members and other friends about their reading habits.

She asked four questions:

When did you learn to read? 

When did you realize that you loved it?

What has it brought to your life? 

Favorite books? Fiction or non-fiction? Why? 

Tim Carl Rendering

Cottrell said she learned to read between 4 and 5 years old, and her favorite book as a child was “Adventures of the Teenie Weenies” by William Donahey. As an adult she favors “Jayber Crow” by Wendell Berry.

Chris Kreiden, library director at the St. Helena Public Library, said she thinks she learned to read in the first grade.

“I have always loved books,” she said. “My uncle used to tell a story about finding me in the dark ‘reading’ the night my brother was born. He was babysitting me since I wasn’t quite 2 yet. The book was a collection of fairy tales in German sent by my grandparents.”

Kreiden said she has always loved how reading can take you “to other places and times, which might be why some of my favorite books take me away.” Those include two classics, Jane Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice” and Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” A later favorite has been Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries, each of which entails a trip to Venice.

Cottrell said the book group began in the mid-1980s, and she attended the first meeting at the invitation of Lois and Bill Swanson. Both men and women are part of the group, and its members meet in each other’s homes on the last Thursday afternoon of each month, except for July and August, when the group takes a break.

District 3 Supervisor Anne Cottrell, daughter of Sue Cottrell, was born and raised in St. Helena. Anne and Doug Cutting have three sons, including the oldest, 23-year-old Henry, whose story is below. She was elected to the Napa County Board of Supervisors in 2022 - Tim Carl Photo.

At one meeting the group discusses possible books to read and the members all read the book, either finding it at the library or ordering it from Main Street Books, now Main Street Bookmine. During the meeting the presenter gives background on the author before everyone discusses the book. There are 10 people in the book club; on average six or eight people attend.  

‘I never looked back’

Cecilia Raffo, circulation supervisor at the St. Helena Public Library, said she learned to read probably in the second or third grade but added, “I was held back to repeat the third grade because of my reading. After that, I never looked back.”

Raffo adds, “Reading in my early years brought me escape from a crazy childhood. Later in life, when I had time when raising kids, reading was a fun outlet. Now it is a way to relax but also force myself to read about subjects I may not gravitate to but should know about.” She likes reading fiction, non-fiction and romance, adding, “I am holding off on murder/mysteries until I have exhausted or tired of the other genres.”

St. Helena author Lin Weber said she learned to read in kindergarten.

“I read the word ‘rabbit’ on a flash card and the teachers seemed upset because I wasn’t supposed to be able to read yet.” She said she realized she loved reading “immediately. It was like magic — words were marks on paper that made the pages seem to talk.”

Weber said she reads every day, and reading brings joy, wisdom and new universes to her life. 

She loves non-fiction, especially history and science, “because there’s so much to know about. And it’s so much fun to think about new things. My first favorite book was ‘All About Dinosaurs’ by Herbert S Zim. My first favorite fiction books were the Dr. Doolittle series by Hugh Lofting.” 

Angwin’s Diane LeBlanc said she doesn’t remember exactly when she learned to read, but it was probably when she was 5 years old. “I never developed a love of reading for pleasure,” she said because she was reading medical books during her whole education, and that continued through her career.

LeBlanc doesn’t have a favorite book, but she’s a member of two book clubs, which suddenly showed her what she had been missing in her life. From her experience in the book clubs, she said she has gained an interest in and respect for women.

This bronze statue of two readers is at the St. Helena Public Library - Tim Carl Photo

Author, poet Alicia Hugg Cutting

Cottrell said occasionally local authors have attended a book club meeting, which “is a huge delight.” They include Ken Stanton, Margaret Wurtele and (the late) Whitney LeBlanc. The authors share not only the story of their books but what inspired them to write them.

Poet and author Alicia Hugg Cutting of St. Helena submitted the following responses.

When did you learn to read? “As a Black child growing up in the Los Angeles ‘suburb’ of Watts (South Central LA), I was blessed to have spent my preschool years and early childhood with my grandparents. My grandmother, a retired schoolteacher, taught her four grandchildren to read and write before kindergarten. In addition to nightly readings of fairy tales and children’s books, she’d take us on weekly trips to the local library, where we were encouraged to check out the maximum number of books allowed — largely determined by the number of books we could carry on the long walk home.”

When did you realize that you loved it? “Immediately! I couldn’t get enough of it. I’d sneak and read books in bed as long as the light shone through the bedroom window. Books enhanced my imagination and contributed to my scholarship.”

What has it brought to your life? “Knowledge, courage, ambition and a lifelong pursuit of education ultimately leading to the privilege of caring for others as a registered nurse and sharing my thoughts with others as a writer. I authored a Sunday weekly op-ed column for the Stockton Record, a Central Valley Gannett publication with a circulation of 60,000 (1991-2000), and feature stories for the Modesto Bee and Nurse.com, serving the Western U.S. nursing community.

Additionally, I’ve written four books, “Art and Soul of Jazz, a tribute to Charles Mingus, Jr.” (my uncle); “Granny Does Europe,” a love story; “Harvesting Miracles,” solace for the soul; and just published “Naked and Opinionated, The Collected Columns of Alicia Hugg, published by The Stockton Record 1991-2000.”

Favorite books? Fiction or non-fiction? Why? “So many favorites! I enjoy both fiction and non-fiction — favoring non-fiction of late. I love biographies and autobiographies like Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maxine Hong Kingston’s “China Men” or George Carlin’s “Last Words” because we learn about the private lives of outstanding individuals. Alice Walker and Toni Morrison are also favorites -- their fiction captures life as it has affected persons of color and thus all people. Some of their books are currently banned in certain parts of our country. Science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury have captured my imagination. I’m currently reading John Lithgow’s “A Confederacy of Dumptys, Portraits of American Scoundrels in Verse.”

‘Books will not disappear’

St. Helena’s Bonnie Thoreen said she did not go to kindergarten, so she learned to read at home with her parents.

“My father was a newspaper publisher, so reading was an anchor in our home,” she said. “However, I did not read for the pleasure of reading until well into my adulthood.”

The first book Thoreen remembers reading with some enjoyment (though it was part of the curriculum) was Charles Dickens' “Great Expectations.” 

“It was required in my ninth-grade English class,” she said. “But if I had an assignment to do a book report (again required) I would read the dust jacket, write something and hope for the best. I got by easily without learning the joy of reading.” 

In college, Thoreen majored in English and had to read Jacobean poetry, American and British literature and everything in between. She said, “I sort of liked Bellow, Steinbeck, Dreiser, Hardy. I thought I could write a sonnet as well as Shakespeare. Again, get through the class, read the material and get a good grade. Not much enjoyment.”

Thoreen earned a master's degree in librarianship and became a librarian. 

“My first position at Seattle Public Library was as a young-adult librarian,” she said. “At that point I began to like reading. ‘Charlotte's Web’ and other Caldecott-award titles opened my eyes to reading for enjoyment, education, insight and imagination.”

Belonging to book groups in St. Helena adds to Thoreen’s enjoyment.

“Sometimes (or even often) when I don't particularly like the book selection, I hear what others have to say about it and completely change my perspective,” she said. 

Thoreen added, “As I commuted to Napa for 30 years (to Napa Valley College) I felt I was wasting my time if I did not have an audiobook going. I had certain readers that I preferred. I learned that authors do not necessarily read their work very well. I slept (not while driving) through many chapters and had to ‘rewind.’ It speaks to learning styles, time management and the willingness (or not) to hold a heavy tome in hand while falling asleep. I still prefer listening but remain loyal to the physical book. I think many people do (just like holding a newspaper rather than gluing our eyes to a screen or even plugging our ears with earbuds). 

“Books will not disappear,” she said. “Not if I have anything to do with it. And a big shout out to independent bookstores! By the way, I will still call it Main Street Books.”

Never found a better book

Cecil Cutting, who spent his career working at Kaiser and is married to Alicia Hugg Cutting, said he learned to read in 1942 or ’43.

“The first time I enjoyed reading I was home sick from school,” he said. “I'd been given a copy of ‘Tom Sawyer’ and read the whole book that day and thought it was wonderful. Before that when people were trying to teach me to read, the stories were boring, uninteresting and dull. I knew there must have been better stuff to read because so many people enjoyed reading. I never found a better book than ‘Tom Sawyer.’"

Cutting said he doesn’t know if he ever loved reading, although he enjoyed it.

“I love my wife — I loved my wives,” he said to clarify. “Love is nothing you throw around lightly. I enjoy reading and enjoy doing it, but love is more special – reserved for your wives and your children."

When asked what reading has brought to his life, he said, "Ideas, feelings, enjoyment, knowledge, amusement."

Cutting doesn’t have one favorite book. Instead he has “a bunch of favorite books. I like both fiction and non-fiction. They can both be very interesting and educational and entertaining and all those things I mentioned earlier that I like about reading."

Tim Carl Photo

Remembers SHPL reading competition

Cutting’s grandson, 23-year-old Henry Cutting, grew up in St. Helena, graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder last December and currently is working in Denver. He has fond memories of reading in the summer, especially during a competition put on by the staff at the St. Helena Public Library. He said that he really learned to read the summer after finishing second grade. The SHPL competition was one for reading books: For every 10 books read the reader could collect a prize.

“I think I read over 100 books that summer (even though they were all short children’s books), but I remember my teachers being shocked with my progress when I returned in the fall. Nowadays with the abundance of digital technology that surrounds us I struggle to find the same drive and consistency reading books, but when I do I am always drawn in. Books still provide me a better escape from reality than any visual media can, I think because the written word is realized in the imagination, and images fail to offer personal interpretation.”

Cutting’s favorite books involve outlandish adventures, he said, with enthralling books from authors such as Roderick Gordon and Neal Stephenson being his favorites.

“I also remember really enjoying ‘The Making of the Atomic Bomb,’ which was given to me by Ace (Cecil) and has now been reimagined for the big screen by my favorite director, Christopher Nolan.”

As for the Main Street Bookstore, Cutting wrote that he has “many fond memories of combing the shelves in that dark and soothing atmosphere. I remember I used to go once a week to buy Asterix and Obelix comic books.

“Living so far away from St. Helena with my visits being only a few times a year, it is interesting to see how the boutique shops and restaurants on Main Street are always changing, but passing by the bookstore is always comforting. It is a staple for the community that I hope stays for years to come.”

Finally, Calistoga and San Francisco resident Lex Brainerd said he’s an avid reader who has loved reading since he was 10 years old.

“I’m sure I read the Hardy Boys series,” he said, “but the books that I really remember got me going and launched me into reading were Walter Farley’s “The Black Stallion” and “The Black Stallion Returns.” he said. Both of his parents are avid readers, and Brainerd remembers “active conversations around the dining room table. I grew up in a reading environment and I just never stopped.” 

Brainerd said he reads both fiction and non-fiction. Reading books, he said, opens up so many worlds and is a never-ending feast. His favorite book is “Deacon King Kong” by James McBride.

“It’s a book of genius,” he said. “It talks about race and poverty in America and is written in a great humorous way. It’s a great book.”

Cottrell sent out the queries and sent the responses to me. Thanks, Sue, for your help. It is appreciated. Dave Stoneberg is an editor and journalist who has worked at newspapers in both Napa and Lake counties.