YALE ROAD BOOK CLUB 2003-2022

Yale Road Book Club

Yale Road Book Club Founding Members

The Yale Road Book Club was founded in 2003 with five members shown above, starting left with Sheree Luttrell, Barbara Tyler, Jayne McCann, Joani Culver and Caroline Tonetti. Their first meeting was held at one of the member’s homes on Yale Road in Menlo Park, hence the name. There are currently ten active members Jayne McCann, Shirley Heine, Elizabeth Blois, Becky Nelson, Michelle Sasson, Susan Kokores, Anne Riley, Sheree Luttrell, Joani Culver and Barbara Tyler.  Suzanne and Joani are now honorary member.

The women meet eight times a year and discuss a current book selection. Books are selected attempting to balance our choices between non-fiction, fiction, mystery, humorous, a classic, selfhelp and biographies. Each member takes responsibility to lead the discussion on a book of her choosing.

When one of the selections has been written by a local author/editor they have been invited to speak to the group. These guest authors have included Joe McNamara author of “Code 211 Blue”, Dr. Stephanie Brown author of “A Place Called Self”, and Brian Solon editor of “Think Big, Act Small”. We enlisted the aid of two local top financial planners Tom Curran and Les Koonce to lead the discussion of a book called, “Start Late, Finish Rich” by David Bach. We enjoyed an evening with Maureen Draper learning more about the healing qualities of music, “The Nature of Music”. We even learned about the beginnings of the television industry from Fran Adams Kearton when she shared her book with us, “Waiting for the Banana Peel…we did it.” One of our memorable evenings was spent with Sue Blois, the niece of John Steinbeck. Best selling author, Meg Clayton lead our discussion of, “The Wednesday Sisters”. We have gone to movies that are about books we have read and attended lectures by authors.  Recently we invited spouses and guests to hear Alex Pang discuss his current book, “Rest”.  Stephanie Brown returned as our guest speaker in 2019 to lead the discussion of “The Greater Good” a memoir of Davida Coady.  In 2020 we appreciated hosting the author Keith Van Sickly who wrote “Are We French Yet”. 

In addition to their regular meetings, the group enjoys two Summer walks to Tootsies on the Stanford Campus as our time for Summer catch up and fun. We have “been there” for each other in many ways.