Connecting Through Literature

Palisadian Liora Powers Launches Will Rogers Neighborhood Book Club

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

As events and gatherings continue to return to in person, one Palisadian saw an opportunity to build community.

Liora Powers launched the Will Rogers Neighborhood Book Club, which met for the first time on Tuesday, April 4, at her home.

“I thought the book club would be a good way to meet neighbors here in our little outpost by the park,” Powers shared. “It was a very warm, intimate evening in my house.”

She shared that over the course of her life, one of the “consistent threads” has been connecting to others through literature. Powers was also inspired by her grandmother, who Powers said was an “avid reader” and that she “connected her neighborhood when she was a young woman through books.”

Because of their location up Will Rogers State Park Road, Powers explained, there is potential for the area to be a small, tight-knit community.

“Many recounted very fond memories of helping or being helped by neighbors,” Powers said of the inaugural gathering, “when kids were sick, when their ovens broke, when a neighbor came to perform CPR in the middle of the night when another had a heart attack.”

Powers has been living in the Will Rogers area since right before the start of the pandemic, landing in Los Angeles in 2019.

“I love my neighborhood,” Powers shared. “I love it because it’s a tiny little small group of three streets right by Will Rogers [State Historic] Park.”

Before the group met for the first time, Powers “knocked on the doors of every house on Villa View, Villa Grove and Villa Woods, delivered a copy of the book, and extended a personal invitation to the members of our 54 households.”

She said that a neighbor had created a list of everyone who lives in the area, including their contact information, kids, dogs … but Powers was hoping to “elevate” that connection “one level” and “get to know people.”

Even before they gathered, Powers said she had received positive feedback.

“I think there’s a feeling both of isolation and a wish to talk to each other,” Powers said of life following COVID-19.

The first book the club read was “In the Neighborhood” by author Peter Lovenheim, who joined the meeting via Zoom.

“‘In the Neighborhood’ tells how Peter, rocked by a brutal murder-suicide in his Rochester, New York, neighborhood, observes that his neighbors are strangers to each other, and decides to do something about it,” Powers described. “Thus begins his campaign to befriend his neighbors by ever-so-politely inviting himself to sleep over at their houses. The book addresses the problem that we are strangers to each other, and Peter seeks to do something about it.”

The meeting included light refreshments made by Powers, as well as her neighbors and a few local businesses, including desserts by Bett Bakes.

Though she has participated in book clubs before, this is the first one Powers has led. Willing to share her gained knowledge, for any neighborhood in the Palisades looking to host a book club of its own, Powers said she can help.

“I have extra books and would be delighted to pass them on to others wishing to have a similar event,” she shared, “or to help host or organize a neighborhood get-together for a different Palisades neighborhood.”

Those who want to get in touch with Powers can reach her via Instagram @liora.powers.los.angeles.