Mount Sinai Book club celebrates 15 years And $250,000 raised
Group raises nearly $250,000 for hospital equipment, programs
As Ellen Fabian tells it, the Mount Sinai Hospital Literary Club was born of an epiphany she had during a stroll along Monkland Ave. with a friend one warm summer Saturday afternoon 15 years ago.
Robert Adams, a popular book reviewer who drew huge crowds, was talking about retirement. And Fabian, a devoted member of the auxiliary of Mount Sinai Hospital and an avid reader, saw the opportunity to fill the void his retirement would cause and create a fundraising project for the hospital.
“It was like a light came on,” she recalled. She took the idea to the auxiliary. “They loved it, and that was it.”
She asked Sheila Lackman, also a committed auxiliary member and a book lover, to chair the initiative with her. Guest reviewers were recruited from universities, CEGEPs and the community, and that fall the hospital’s literary club was launched.
From 45 members the first year, subscriptions grew quickly, almost entirely through word of mouth. A few years later, the gathering moved from Tudor Hall at Ogilvys to Congregation Beth-El in the Town of Mount Royal, where parking was less of a challenge, and a light buffet breakfast was added.
As its 15th season gets underway this fall, the Mount Sinai Hospital Literary Breakfast Club has 250 members and has raised close to $250,000 for the hospital. Fabian is justifiably proud of the milestone.
The first goal of the literary club is to raise money for the patients of Mount Sinai so they have a better quality of life, said Lackman, an auxiliary past-president like Fabian.
Affiliated with McGill University, the 95-bed Côte- St-Luc hospital provides three types of services: short-term respiratory care, longterm care and palliative care.
“Mount Sinai is a little gem of a hospital and not everybody knows about it,” Fabian said.
The auxiliary, through various fundraising initiatives, helps to underwrite the cost of hospital equipment and programs not funded by the government, among them special beds and a music therapy program. The hospital’s garden, started with a donation by the family of an auxiliary member, is maintained by the auxiliary.
“Everybody knows they are helping the hospital,” Fabian said.
It’s also important that subscribers enjoy themselves. “We want to make it a place people want to be with tablecloths, an elegant-looking buffet, a great reviewer and easy parking,” said Fabian.
She and Lackman head a committee of 10 who are on the lookout for books they think members will like. Reviewers are generally asked to submit three or four titles, the committee members read all the books, “and if four people love the book, we choose it,” Lackman said. Sometimes the committee makes its own recommendations to reviewers.
There are five reviews every season, each by a different guest reviewer. In choosing reviewers, “we tend to look for people who are animated,” Fabian said. “We want them to engage with their audience.”
To retired English professor Larry Weller, who will review the 2018 novel An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones, for the club this season, “the art of reading is not just intellectual, it’s visceral.”
In his lectures, he concentrates on the text, on its symbols, images
and structures, which provide “the core that make the story move forward.”
This season gets underway Oct. 3 with Anne Lagacé Dowson reviewing The Girl Who Wrote in Silk, by Kelli Estes; on Oct. 31 Linda Shohet will review Manhattan Beach, by Jennifer Egan; next May, Kathy Diamond will review The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah, and Donald Cuccioletta will review The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead.
In June, Weller will close the season, as he does each year. A much-sought-after lecturer who reviews films and books in and around Montreal and elsewhere, he lauded the committee members who run the Mount Sinai literary club for “their excellent work, their efficiency and the number of people they are able to bring out.”
Flyers for the upcoming season are not distributed before June, said Fabian, “and they are calling the office in March or April to ask, ‘Is the flyer out?’ ”
She said that 98 per cent of people come prepared, having read the book.
A season’s membership is $100 for five lectures and, although individual tickets are available for $25 at the door, most people subscribe for the season.
“We want them to buy the whole membership,” Lackman said. “That way they make a commitment.”
When a special sponsor membership at $136 was introduced, fully half the subscribers opted for it, “just because they know they are helping the hospital,” Fabian said.