Welcome to Oak Manor Book Club Rush. Get ready to join the most important club of your life.

—Your Rush Chairs

Alpha Alpha Alpha

If you are an ambitious woman looking to give 110%—or more—to a book club, we are the place for you. We have rules. Some months members suggest additional titles, and we read those for extra credit. We use a complex rubric and grading system to evaluate each book. Our members have strong resumes and our families dress in matching outfits for holidays. We are not as fun at cocktail parties as we think we are. If you haven’t read the book, kindly do not attend.

Chi Upsilon (AKA Chi Upside-down)

You drink wine? White Claw? Ranch Water because no hangovers with tequila, am I right? At Chi Upsilon, you should probably know the title of the book when you arrive, but that’s the extent of our literary expectations. If we’re being honest, and we are very honest by the third round, this is a drinking club. We start with cheese and crackers to coat the stomach—the rest is a crapshoot. We might order pizza or play beer pong. Our meetings look like bachelorette parties, but we are grown-ass women and our families would be suspicious of a monthly bender, so we call it Book Club.

Sigma Skibidi Theta

We are boy moms. You’ll know you are at the Sigma house when you see the worn-out welcome mat saying, “There are a LOT of boys in here.” We pretend to read parenting books and devour fantasies about mother/daughter relationships, but mostly it's a support group. We tell dick jokes and share contact info for lacrosse coaches, executive functioning coaches, orthopedists, and therapists. TikTok videos and meme-sharing count as a book discussion, and every one of us knows, even if we cannot articulate it, exactly what “Skibidi Toilet” means.

Not One Iota

You didn’t read the book. You don’t plan on ever reading the book, but you need to get out of your house once a month. Us too. With good intentions, we choose the latest bestsellers. We comment on cover art and may mention having read another book by this author years ago, before we had kids. In the beginning we’d make excuses: “I downloaded the audiobook but I couldn’t stand the narrator’s voice.” Not anymore. If you loved CliffsNotes in college, Not One Iota is the “book” club for you.

Who Nu Mu

Mu is not a real person, but if it was a code name for our neighbor, Mindy, we’d tell you about the affair she’s having with the math tutor and that her kid was the one called out on the Oak Manor Moms page for spraying moving cars with water guns. We talk about everyone in town, and while we say we maintain a circle of trust within the club, if a member misses a meeting, she’s fair game. Best to arrive early and leave late. What we lack in facts we make up for with conviction.

High Beta Kappa

HBK is a highly intellectual book club for women who excelled academically and spent four (or more) years getting stoned with other geniuses at some of the finest elite institutions. We are older now but can still dissect Raymond Carver or Toni Morrison and, thanks to gummies, leave no smell of weed in our wake. We’ve gotten high at Sundance, Cannes, and Toronto Film Festival. No Burning Man or Coachella—too performative and, frankly, too many idiots. Bring the signed first-edition Alan Ginsburg you bought at The Strand. The Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and Patti Smith vinyl awaits.

Rho Rho Rho Your Boat

Were you in an a capella group in college? Can’t even hum a nursery rhyme? Regardless of talent, we end our book club meetings at karaoke night. It’s about limited time and maximum fun. We can discuss a book AND sing Bon Jovi and “Ice Ice Baby” to a dive bar full of Sinatra-loving retired cops. That 20-something in the crowd sounds exactly like Adele, or so we think after all that book club wine. We buy her a shot because oh my god, it’s 11 PM and how crazy is this that we’re out?

Feta Pi

Clever name, right? We are more of a cooking club than a book club. To avoid seeming too housewifey, we read a book, AND prepare an elaborate meal for our friends. Feta Pi holds a potluck Friendsgiving and Christmas recipe swap. Our books are food-themed. Who knew Fannie Flagg wrote so much about that Whistle Stop Cafe? From Lessons in Chemistry to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society and literally anything by Stanley Tucci, we can’t get enough of books about food. You’re welcome.