SU’s first book club exposes students to diverse authors and topics

Over 40 students filled a small room in Newhouse, each interested in hearing about the new book club that began on campus in fall 2024.

Brālyn Louise, president and founder of the Beyond the Book club, stood at the front of the classroom as she introduced the club she had been working on for the past few months to the students.

Louise and her fellow executive board members had only anticipated a handful of students to attend the club’s first general meeting, but were surprised as more and more students walked through the doors.

Every chair in the room was filled. Once seating ran out, students huddled shoulder to shoulder, standing against the back wall of the classroom.

Louise came up with the idea for Beyond the Book when she realized a book club was not offered to students at Syracuse University. After being encouraged by a close friend, she decided to create one herself with a focus on representation in literature.

“I felt that it was really important that it not only be a book club, but a club that is dedicated to authors and stories that are diverse,” Louise said. 

The club was recognized as a student organization in fall 2024 and began holding monthly events that semester.

The main events center around discussions of the club’s book of the month, which is chosen by the executive board. Members of the club can borrow a copy of the book that the club has purchased and turn them back in to be exchanged for the next book the club is reading.

Within its first year of operation, Beyond the Book’s events and meetings drew much interest, attracting members made up of many different majors and departments within the university.

“Beyond the Book can be somewhere people can go where they have a shared interest with people,” Kai Scott, vice president of Beyond the Book, said. “Here’s a third space where I can just get to know other people at college who are interested in the things I’m interested in and talk about the things I want to talk about outside of classes.”

The club’s mission is to create a safe space for discussion and welcomes those with a shared love of reading.

“I hope Beyond the Book can give the members a little more of that community and make them feel heard,” Karina Nieves, public relations chair, said.

In the spring semester of 2025, Beyond the Book was one of the many student organizations at Syracuse University that had its funding cut unexpectedly.

The funding loss meant the club could no longer provide copies of books to members, forcing the organization to pivot many of its events.

“We tried to find our ways around it,” Louise said. “We did movie nights where we’d watch movies that were adapted from books and just tried to keep that interest present since we will have funding again this fall.”

During the spring semester, Beyond the Book partnered with the College Democrats at SU for an event to discuss recent book bans affecting the publishing industry. The event also included a Banned Book Read-Aloud, where members were encouraged to read passages aloud from their favorite banned books.

Now in the fall semester and with their funding reinstated, Beyond the Book hopes to put on more events than ever and garner interest from the campus community.

Plans for events coming in the fall include bookmark decorating and a club-wide trip to the Barnes & Noble located in Syracuse, along with their Meet a Banned Book read-aloud in collaboration with Bird Library for National Banned Books Week.

“The goal is just that people realize these diverse authors and diverse stories are important,” Louise said. “There’s nothing wrong with reading a story about characters who don’t look like you or don’t come from the places you come from, and more importantly, that everybody should be able to read a book and see themselves in it.”