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Our Final Jeopardy question:

Name the place in Greensboro where you can regularly meet (in person!) a group of people (who all go by their real names!) and have an hour to spend chatting about a book they just read.

Hint: They all got the book free, and when they are done with this book, they exchange it for whatever the group decides to read next, depending on the group's bent, be it classic, mystery, sci-fi, historical.

Boop-boop-boop!

If you answered, "What are the Greensboro Library branches, which host 11 book clubs and make sets of books available for outside book clubs to reserve and check out?" you score!

"I used to go to a book club at Barnes & Noble, but I had no willpower - I would buy everything they suggested," says Sue Frye, a former social worker who belongs to the Literati book club at Hemphill Branch.

"Now I'm not spending all that money, and my husband can't complain that I'm taking up all that space with books I've already read."

Thanks to the influence of veteran library associate Ron Headen, Hemphill is among the system's most prolific book-club hosts, with five separate clubs catering to different age groups, schedules and genres, including teen, mystery, African American literature and mystery writers.

"When people who love to read get together, they just want to talk about it," says Headen, who leads the informal chats by throwing out a question or topic. "We try, but rarely do we finish our discussion in an hour."

The clubs, which have been flourishing in interest, include special events such as Jane Austen teas or meetings with writers. On Saturday, for instance, the club heard a talk by first-time novelist R. Caresse Hightower of Greensboro, author of the colorful comic romance "Fonnie Flagrant."

What club members enjoy, along with satisfying their appetite for reading and conversation, is hearing different viewpoints. Brian Cobbs, for example, one of the few male members of the African American Literature Club, got to hear his fellow members' take on not only Sister Souljah and Alice Walker, but also Zane, author of erotica.

"Very interesting," he notes dryly. "I can assure you."

For Kanika Payne, who was laid off from a telecommuting job just before she joined the Saturday book club, the meeting was an outlet and a chance to meet people from different walks of life - educators, retired people, people with different perspectives.

"I love to sit around and hear people converse," she says. "With so many companies going to telecommuting, people feel cut off."

Blunders of historic proportions

Much as I hate to start 2009 with an error, thanks to our old friend Pete Petrea - and 2,009 other readers - for pointing out Wednesday that FDR, not Winston Churchill, said there was nothing to fear "but fear itself."

Churchill was better known for saying of Charles de Gaulle, "Of all the crosses I have to bear, the heaviest is the Cross of Lorraine," a quote popular with newspaper editors.

Wednesday's column also misquoted Suzzy, 10, about spaghetti pie. The quote should have read: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com