Men's book clubs to check out on Long Island

John Carney , a retired ICU nurse from Bay Shore, had been part of a book club at his local library whose members were mostly women. Carney, 70, acknowledged he felt a little out of step with their reading selections.

“The books they were reading didn’t appeal to me,” he said.

In March, he joined the Tough Guy Book Club, which as its name implies, has an all-male membership. At 7 p.m. on a Wednesday in September, he and his fellow members started filtering into the back room of Runyon’s restaurant in Seaford for their monthly meeting.

Many were carrying that month’s selection, “The End of the Story” by Lydia Davis, a 1995 novel where the female protagonist, a writer, looks back on a relationship with a man a dozen years younger than she. 

Carney is the club’s older member, the others are in their 30s and 40s, but he said he appreciates hearing from the group’s younger members what they thought of the books.

“It’s all guys and it’s nice to get a different perspective on the books we read,” he said.

 According to 2019 report from the book recommendation service BookBrowse, 88% of private book groups are all-women, although half of public groups include men. But across Long Island, there are several book clubs that flip the script with either all-male, or mostly male, memberships. For their members, the conversations can reach beyond the reading, offering a chance to build friendships and share observations on life.

Several library book clubs, while open to everyone, tend to attract a male crowd because of their subject matter. They include the Seaford Public Library’s American History & Biography Book Discussion Group, the Gus Alfieri Sports Book Discussion Group at the Smithtown Public Library and the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library’s Fact Over Fiction Book Club. The library also plans to launch The Tuesday Night Music Book Club next year that will focus in its first year on alternative rock and grunge music performers with a Long Island connection.

“We’re trying to give everybody a little piece of the library at every age,” Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library Director Michelle Young said.

Here are a few to check out.

Tough Guy Book Club

The Tough Guy Book Club in Seaford is part of the international Tough Guy Book Club, based in Australia and founded in 2012.

Its mission is to encourage men to read more and give them an opportunity to form new friendships.

The headquarters selects the books each month and provides a list of discussion questions. The reading list is eclectic, ranging from Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” to Ernest Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not.”

The organization also assigns a challenge each month for members to perform. One month it was to get a blood pressure exam. September’s task was to find an old photo of a local historic site, take a current photo and post both to the chapter’s Facebook page.

The Seaford chapter, which is free to join, is one of more than 190 worldwide and one of only two in New York State. The other meets in Manhattan. The Seaford group was started by two friends: Miguel DaSilva, 49, an insurance broker and risk advisor, and Jamie Prosser, 50, a retired New York City firefighter and the chapter’s president. Both were fairly avid readers but hadn’t read as much lately.

Their wives belong to a book club and DaSilva and Prosser jokingly said to each other, “Maybe we should start our own book club?”

They recruited about a half dozen other “Seaford dads” and held their first meeting in February 2025. . The group has grown to about 18 members including newcomers who found them on social media and people who come from towns as far as Melville and East Meadow. If the group’s membership reaches about 20 members, they might consider starting a separate chapter in Suffolk County, Prosser said.

“We have a beer and we discuss the books,” said DaSilva, the group’s sergeant.

But they talk about more than books. The discussion questions encourage members to open up about their feelings.

One of the questions at the September meeting was whether it hurts as much to break up with someone as it does for them to break up with you.

“Twenty years ago, you wouldn’t have this, because men didn’t talk,” said Carney, the retired ICU nurse.

There is one subject they shy away from: they don’t discuss what they do for a living.

“There’s no work talk,” DaSilva said.

Focus on the American Revolution

At the August meeting of the Seaford Public LIbrary’s American History & Biography Book Discussion Group, five of the seven members in attendance were men, with attendees ranging in age from the late 60s to the 80s.

Frank McKenna, 68, the group’s leader and the library’s executive director, led the discussion of Russell Shorto’s book “Revolution Song.”

In honor of the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026, McKenna is focusing on those about the American Revolution.

“I learn something new every time I come,” said Art Feeney, 86, a retiree from Seaford.

Several members found Shorto’s book a great read.

“This is probably the best book we’ve read this year,” said Michael Berman, 80, a retired teacher from Wantagh.

The discussion included a spirited debate about the Colonial Army’s  military tactics.

“My folks can disagree, but they’re not disagreeable with each other,” McKenna said. “They often have different viewpoints and they feel very strongly about them but it’s all done in a respectable way.”

Talking sports

George Steinbrenner was the topic of discussion at the September meeting of the Gus Alfieri Sports Book Discussion Group at the Smithtown Public Library, as the group dove into that month’s selection, “Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball,” by Bill Madden.

All but one of the 13 group members present were men. Many came with handwritten notes; some brought articles clipped from the sports pages.

“It’s fun to talk sports with intelligent people,” said Steve Rochester, 81, a retired history teacher from Deer Park and assistant basketball coach at Brentwood High School. He joined the club in 2004, its inaugural year.

Opinions on the late Yankees owner, varied among the group's Yankees and Mets fans.

One participant  called Steinbrenner’s “volcanic temper” and noted his tempestuous relationship with his many-times fired manager Billy Martin.

Lew Kaem, 84, a retired lawyer from Hauppauge, said the drama between owner and manager was almost operatic. 

The group was founded by Alfieri, a St. John's University star basketball player, championship-winning coach at St. Anthony's High School in South Huntington and the longtime operator of All American Basketball Camp. He died in 2024 at age 87.

The original group members were mostly Alfieri’s coaching buddies.

Today, many members are retired educators like Ken Geils, 87, of Holtsville who led the Steinbrenner discussion.

The retired Elmont Memorial High School history teacher, who joined 21 years ago, said he likes the camaraderie of the group. Members go to lunch after the meetings and have even spoken at other members’ funerals.

Arlene Gluck, 75, a retired teacher and principal from Plainview, attends regularly with her husband. She said being the only woman at the table doesn’t bother her and she appreciates the friendships and respect for differing opinions.

There's room for some good-natured ribbing, too.

One member prefaced his comment by saying “I’ve been a Yankee fan since the time I was born,”

Joe McDonough, 79, a retired high school math teacher from North Merrick, fired back, “Doesn’t make you a bad person.”