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A few years ago a friend of mine gathered a bunch of us together and started a book club. I’d never belonged to one before, and it was pretty fantastic. We met every few weeks for a couple of years and read some things I loved (East of Eden), liked (Vernon God Little), disliked (The Periodic Table), and hated (The Last Crossing). Eventually the club fizzled.
Back at the beginning of this year I made a very conscious effort to strike more balance in my life after several years of prioritizing work over pretty much everything else. I was burnt out, exhausted, bereft of creativity, and my lifelong habit of reading fiction had suffered significantly (the decline started almost immediately when I started writing my first crochet book). I desperately wanted to get back into reading but had lost touch with how I’d even discovered books that interested me. And then I remembered that my friends have many and varied tastes, and so I sent out an email suggesting we start up our book club again. Now I’m back in my normal groove of always having a novel on my nightstand.
Apparently, October is National Reading Group Month, so I though I’d write a little about how we run our book club, in case you’re looking to join or start one. After reading some of what author Joshua Henkin* has written about his experiences visiting dozens of book clubs, I have the impression we do things a little differently from what might be considered to be the norm. But it works very well for us, and anyway norms tend to be overrated.
Back at the beginning, I asked everyone who was interested in joining to send me one or two titles they wanted the group to consider. I compiled plot summaries of the ten submitted books and sent them out to the couple dozen people on my list and asked them to let me know the following:
I laid out some other ground rules (asking people not to reply-all to the emails to save everyone from book-club email burnout, and some other stickler items), set a date, and that was that.
We meet about every six weeks, at a volunteer’s house (as long as they live close enough to the center of town that most of us can easily get there after work). The person who initially put the chosen book on the list for consideration leads the discussion about it. We usually have a pot luck dinner (if possible, loosely based on any food themes from the book).
A couple of days before we meet, I ask if anyone has a title they want to add to the list for consideration for our next book. Then I recompile the list and send it out again for voting, which works the same way it did the first time around (except we only revisit good days of the week every few months). Most times, I’m ready to announce the next book during our meeting; then I follow up with an email containing all the details and the next meeting date.
Over time I’ve removed some books from the list. I do so either if a few people have already read them, or if several people say they aren’t interested in reading them for book club.
So far we’ve read a fairly wide assortment of novels, and because we choose them from a “living” list and not under pressure of time, we’ve inadvertently avoided fad books and have instead chosen from amongst titles new and old and of varying sorts.
Things I’ve been picking up on as we go:
Here’s what we’ve read so far (links go to Goodreads, which is made of awesome):
And the following are books I’ve read this year directly as a result of book club, but not for book club:
As far as I can recall (with the help of Goodreads), I read ten books in 2007. So far in 2008 I’ve read seventeen. That’s more like it.
Do you belong to a book club? How do you like it?
* I haven’t actually read his book yet. But I plan to. Eventually.
It's certainly nice that our book club is pretty much made up of friends who
go way back. I've enjoyed how our differences are highlighted when we
discuss a book. But on the other hand, and despite those differences, in
general we all have a fairly similar set of values, so we miss out in not
having wildly divergent perspectives represented.
I am a serial bookclub joiner. One thing I've discovered is that for me, bookclubs made up of groups of friends don't work. Maybe it's because we're all at the stage where we have young chldren, but inevitably, the meetings ended up with 10 mins. of book discussion and 1 hr. of personal stuff. And when people didn't read the book, they still came because it was social — which was OK, except that then there was almost no discussion of the book and more and more started forgetting about the book and making it only social.
You seem very organized and on top of everything, which is fantastic. My current book group has a leader like that. One thing we do differently is that we choose the book 2 months in advance, so that people can schedule accordingly. This also allows more time for people who need to get the book out of the library.
We've just started picking a book in advance, too, so people can have
a head start if they want it. (This was suggested by a mom in our
group.)
I've been really impressed that we've remained focused on the books. I
think the pot luck helps — we can catch up before we begin the formal
discussion. The discussion usually lasts well over an hour, too. It's
pretty excellent.
On 7-Oct-08, at 6:50 PM, “Disqus” <notifications-
I don't belong to a book club, but do something in a similar vein – a friend and I have been meeting for breakfast and reading books aloud one morning a weekend for at least three years now. We alternate reading for a chapter or so each, and for the last year or so we've taken to knitting while the other is reading. We read a lot of sci-fi and young-adult fantasy, as it lends well to being read aloud, but we've also read things like The Metamophosis, The Plague, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Heart of Darkness, and a little bit of Lovecraft. (If you're really interested, I've been trying to keep a log of all the books we read over on my Goodreads page in the “aloud” category: http://www.goodreads.com/profile/galatea)
We've talked about trying to start a bi-weekly read-aloud for adults, but the idea's been shelved until we can find some matching free time that we're willing to sacrifice to the cause. One day, though.
hey!
i was in that book club!
i'd love to know what the books are and take part! :)
Greetings,
I was surfing today and stumbled upon your posting regarding book clubs. I'm one of the founding partners of Booksprouts.com
We are an online book club site that is free to join, and allows members to create a club, invite friends, create meetings, and to choose and read books together online. The service is still fairly new, and we are interest in getting feedback on it, as well as getting the word out to people that may be interested in the service. We welcome you to trying out the service free of charge, and welcome to you blog or write about it – good or bad – we appreciate all feedback that helps us improve the service for our members.
Thank you, and we hope you enjoy Booksprouts.com!
Please contact me directly with any questions or assistance.
Regards,
Jason Pfeifer
Community Manager
Booksprouts.com
jason@booksprouts.com
Greetings,
I was surfing today and stumbled upon your posting regarding book clubs. I'm one of the founding partners of Booksprouts.com
We are an online book club site that is free to join, and allows members to create a club, invite friends, create meetings, and to choose and read books together online. The service is still fairly new, and we are interest in getting feedback on it, as well as getting the word out to people that may be interested in the service. We welcome you to trying out the service free of charge, and welcome to you blog or write about it – good or bad – we appreciate all feedback that helps us improve the service for our members.
Thank you, and we hope you enjoy Booksprouts.com!
Please contact me directly with any questions or assistance.
Regards,
Jason Pfeifer
Community Manager
Booksprouts.com
jason@booksprouts.com
Greetings,
I was surfing today and stumbled upon your posting regarding book clubs. I'm one of the founding partners of Booksprouts.com
We are an online book club site that is free to join, and allows members to create a club, invite friends, create meetings, and to choose and read books together online. The service is still fairly new, and we are interest in getting feedback on it, as well as getting the word out to people that may be interested in the service. We welcome you to trying out the service free of charge, and welcome to you blog or write about it – good or bad – we appreciate all feedback that helps us improve the service for our members.
Thank you, and we hope you enjoy Booksprouts.com!
Please contact me directly with any questions or assistance.
Regards,
Jason Pfeifer
Community Manager
Booksprouts.com
jason@booksprouts.com
A new coworker started one up with some of her friends a few weeks ago, and we recently had the first meeting. I'd never done a book club before and I have to say I enjoyed it. I think it would be even better if I had more in common with the other women (they're mostly Moms, and there were kids around – neither of which is a bad thing, but it makes me wonder if I will be able to connect with them very much outside of book club, since they are in this whole other sphere than I am). But anyway, I liked being able to dredge up my old English major self and make random points.