Book Club

[CANDLEQUEEN]

Have any of you ever belonged to a Book Club? My sister and I are starting one up next month, and we have about 10 people , we are holding the meeting once a month, question is for those who have ever belonged to one, how did you go about deciding on what book to read? My sister and I are throwing some ideas around, but I thought I would come on this board and see if anyone has any suggestions as well.

Thank-you!

[mspatmac]

Years ago I did. We had 8 people and met every 2 weeks. The group decided on every 2 weeks. We rotated who would pick the next book which was fun because most had completely different types of books so we read quite the variety. Hope you enjoy, I did

[ThinkingOutLoud]

I've been part of one a couple different times. Some options:

~ At the end of each get-together, people make suggestions and decide on one

~ One time, someone came with a printed list of '100 books to read before you die' (google it). I think it was divided by genre and it was passed around and we just marked what ones we'd be interested in

~ My local library has special 'book club bags' - you may want to see if yours does something similar or at least see if there are enough copies of titles you're considering so people don't have to purchase them

[ThinkingOutLoud]

Just thought of something else - 

You might want to consider having different genres each month.

For instance:

Jan - self help

Jun - adventure

Oct - mystery

Dec - classics

This way, you get a variety and everyone knows what to expect. I say this because someone once suggested a different genre and at the get-together, people disparaged ithe book more than I had heard them do so before. I think the comments hurt the person's feelings and may have made her hesitant to suggest another one in the future. 

[CANDLEQUEEN]

Thanks so much ladies!!!!Great comments. I appreciate them.

[Still Raining]

I was in two clubs prior to this mess.

In one the leader selected and that was not the best way to do it.

The other one kept a list of who was up next and that person had pure choice.  Unless there was a revolt 😂. That was so good because it forced all of us out our ruts.

[tucsongal]

I’ve been part of a book club for many years and we have continued through Zoom thankfully. We select a year’s worth of books by December and look for things that are not brand new so that we can get them from the library. People start bringing suggestions in the fall and we read the description or reviews and make our decision as a group.

Sometimes someone has read the book, other times it just sounds interesting.  We’ve even made changes partway through the year for various reasons. Our book club is very laid-back LOL. 

[tucsongal]

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@Still Raining wrote:

I was in two clubs prior to this mess.

In one the leader selected and that was not the best way to do it.

The other one kept a list of who was up next and that person had pure choice.  Unless there was a revolt 😂. That was so good because it forced all of us out our ruts.

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Has either group considered zoom meetings? I was able to talk my book club into it and now we don’t want to miss it.

[onliner]

I have been in two book clubs, both met at the library.  The librarian was the moderator.  Both clubs met once monthly.  Every 6 months we emailed suggestions with brief summaries to the librarian and she put everyone's suggestion and summary together so that we could all vote.  She listed the books by genre, and we voted on one or two per genre.  She decided when we would read the books, so that we weren't reading the same type of book in a row.  Choosing 6 books in advance gave us the opportunity to buy the book ahead of time.  Questions were usually emailed to us just before we met, so that we were prepared.

There are some good ideas on starting a book club on litlovers.com

[KaySD]

In my book club, which is in its tenth year, we take turns picking the book. The person whose turn it is also picks the meeting place (although lately it's always zoom). Our only agreements are to read literary fiction, not too dark. Enjoy!