Questions for anyone in a book club

[WitMom]

I have been wanting to be in a book club for years now. I can never find one to join, so I'm toying with just starting my own. Since I really have no idea what I'm doing, I have lots of questions.

-how often and where do you meet?
-how many members are there? Is that too many, not enough, just right?
-how do you pick your books? Do you focus on one genre, or really anything goes?
-do your meetings just involve discussion of the book, or is there something more (for example, I've heard of book clubs having phone calls with the author. I don't know how common this is, but it sounds like a lot of coordination to make it happen....eek).
-what do you think are the keys to a successful club?
-anything else I should know?

[hellokitty]

I've only done book club with our moms club. We usually ask members for input on book suggestions, but if nobody has suggestions, the person in charge picks the book. We try to pick a variety of books, but so far historic fiction seems to be the ones that goes over the best. We've done a fair amt of young adult books, but some ppl didn't like them. There have only been a few books that everyone liked. There always seems to be a someone who didn't like the book, lol. Goodreads is our go to source for possible books. We also keep in mind that we need books that the library has multiple copies of the book available (and there isn't a huge hold list, like right now, "Gone Girl" is so popular, our book club is waiting until the excitement wears down, so it's easier to get the books for our members), so we aren't always spending a ton of $ to buy books each month, kwim?

Our moms club split and we decided to split our book club too, since it was getting too big. There were over 10 moms consistently and when we'd meet, it seemed like it always broke out into two groups of discussion and if you were on one end of the table, it would be too hard to hear what was going on, on the other end. I think ideally a consist group of about 4-6 is the best size. It keeps it intimate and varied enough that the discussion is interesting. We've never done a call with an author before! I had never heard of that one, I would be too intimidated, lol. I think that the key to book club is to get everyone's input. One reason our book club split after our moms club split (we had the option to keep doing just one book club) is that the group got too big and we had moms who had school aged kids wanting to meet at coffee shops and then we had moms with preschool to infant/toddler kids who wanted to do it at someone's house or at a play area. The ones in charge had school age kids, so then the ones with littler kids were kind of disenchanted about trying to keep their kids occupied and well behaved at a coffee shop, while also paying attn to the discussion, kwim? I worked out that the two clubs splitting ended up with mostly school aged moms in the original club and moms of little kids in the other club, so doing it at a coffee shop hasn't been an issue for us. However, the one who most loudly complained about the coffee shop meet ups, rarely even participates anymore and she is one of the main reasons why we decided to split our book clubs, grrr! Anyway, one major problem is getting ppl to host it at their house, so that is why a lot of members preferred to hold it in a public place.

IDK if you have checked your library, but our local library system has their own book club each month and so does one of the local independently owned bookstores. If you think it is too daunting to set up your own BC, this would probably be the way to go.

[niccig]

I was in a book club that fizzled and I'll tell you why, so you can avoid that.


1. People kept wanting to change the date and often very last minute. Reason given was their DH was now busy and they didn't want to pay for a babysitter - I get not wanting to pay, but instead of inconveniencing everyone, just don't go. My 2nd book club was an off-shoot and we had a firm rule, date was set and if your plans changed you didn't go.

2. People took turns choosing a book - sigh, I'm not into vampire/zombie fiction and don't consider it a good book club book. I think it helps if everyone has similar ideas on what to read. It is good to branch out and try other things, but the month with the zombie book, no one finished the book.

3. Find book club questions about the book and discuss those, otherwise you end up talking/gossiping and the book barely gets mentioned.

We met every 4-6 weeks. I miss it, but the group just didn't have enough energy to sustain it.

[Ceepa]

-We meet every month rotating through members' homes.
-There are usually about 10 members at any meeting. Sometimes it has been as few as 6 members. There are more members on the official list but each month there are reasons that some can't attend (conflicts, illness).
-Any genre goes, which I like because I read books I wouldn't pick for myself.
-Our meetings are casual and we usually have a list of discussion questions to glance at if discussion lags. But mostly people just toss out random questions/thoughts.
-There are light snacks and drinks, alcoholic and non-.

It's such a nice group, no drama or politics. I think it helps that we are all readers and not using the gatherings as a cover for socializing and gossip, as has happened in other clubs I was in.

[sarahsthreads]

We had an established playgroup of four moms, and we decided to branch out into a book club so we could have an excuse to go out to dinner once a month without the DHs or kids. :)

So, we met once a month, and just kind of threw out suggestions for a restaurant each time through email - usually someplace one of us wanted to go to but our families would never agree to eat at, like the local Indian place. We mainly took turns suggesting books, but it wasn't a formal thing, and if whoever was supposed to be picking a book didn't have a great suggestion, we'd pick one off the library book club list (not their current one, though, so we could all find copies in a reasonable time frame.)

I'd have to say the idea of having specific questions to think about is probably a good one, because some months we literally spent 10 minutes discussing the book and spent the rest of the time discussing, well, the kids and DHs! Those were usually months, though, where none of us were really all that jazzed about the book we'd read. But I really enjoyed it for the two years we kept it going because there were books I might not have chosen myself that I really enjoyed (and books I didn't, but those were pretty rare) and it was nice to get away for an adult evening even if the discussion only vaguely involved the books...

We wound up breaking it off when one of our members moved. By then we all had school-aged children anyway, with all the evening activities that comes with, and it was getting difficult for anyone to commit to a date.

Sarah :)

[rlu]

1 how often and where do you meet?
2 how many members are there? Is that too many, not enough, just right?
3 how do you pick your books? Do you focus on one genre, or really anything goes?
4 do your meetings just involve discussion of the book, or is there something more (for example, I've heard of book clubs having phone calls with the author. I don't know how common this is, but it sounds like a lot of coordination to make it happen....eek).
5 what do you think are the keys to a successful club?
6 anything else I should know?

I'm in two book clubs - one at my church and one made up of the female relations in my mom's family (5 sisters, 4 cousins including me).
1) church book club meets 2nd Sunday every month; family book club meets 3rd Saturday in odd months (generally the suggester of the book hosts)
2) church about 5 consistent members; family 9, usual attendance is 6. I think both groups have the right amount to have discussion and everyone gets to say as much (or little) as they want
3) picking books is tough - church people suggest book titles and then a title is picked from a hat; family we had a blow-up over the YA books so we changed that one person suggests four books from which we pick (and the next meeting a different person suggests four books, repeat) Under our old method we had a wide variety of books (YA, Sci-fi, mystery, bestsellers, classics) but our new system has focused on bestsellers. We also require the books be available at the library
4) church tends to discuss the book and then break-up; family, well, it's 5 sisters and their kids, we discuss the book a bit and then catch-up
5) keys - set a date and keep it even if NOONE can show up (like Mother's day was supposed to be church book club - we all read the book but didn't meet); let everyone pick a book (this does mean you'll get books you'd never read and maybe won't finish, exposure to new things doesn't kill you)
6) many books have book club questions in the back or you can look up the book online to see if there are any questions. Not everyone is going to like every book, that just is.

[hellokitty]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we meet the same day of the month for our book club. For example, the third Friday of every month. We also use book club discussion questions from online, so whoever is in charge of the book club meet up or the hostess is in charge of printing out a set of questions for that meet up.

[TwinFoxes]

I meet with a group of other neighborhood women. I was approached, apparently they'd had a few people they tried out that were disastrous. We meet once a month. We are a small book club, only 5 of us. I really enjoy it, and look forward to it. Our DHs all joke that we don't do anything but drink wine and gossip, which isn't true...sometimes we have beer. ;) But in all seriousness, we do discuss the book. Some just lend themselves to more discussion than others.

The biggest problem is there's one person in our group who doesn't read many of the books. Anything difficult or out of her comfort zone she will only read a few pages (historical, foreign, anything that "feels like homework"). Luckily she doesn't mind us talking about spoilers...it would be lame if she did!

Picking the books is actually kind of a ongoing pain. We've done just winging it at the end of the night, thumbing through Amazon recs. We've made lists and voted on books for the next several months. We've all taken turns. It's hard to find good books! I don't mind reading genres I don't usually enjoy. I certainly wouldn't have read Divergent or The Hunger Games on my own, but I enjoyed them.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Every other month (every month was too much)
Each member takes turn hosting and picking a book. I used a google spreadsheet and let people sign up.
Anything goes book wise.
Sometimes we get the book club kit from the library. It comes with nice supplements and questions.
Alcohol makes the outings more fun. ;)

[newnana]

I've been in the same book club for 8 years. The core group has been the same the whole time, but we often add/lose members. smallest attendance has been about 8, largest about 30. Whatever the number, it's always great. Flexibility is the key to our group.

We meet every 4-6 weeks depending on the length of book selected and what is going on. For example, a 400 page book in late November, early December will automatically put us to the end of January because of holiday crazies and assuming nobody will pick it up until Jan 2. Once we pick a date, that is it. Moving is too confusing. If you can make it, great, we'd love to have you. If not, we hope to see you next time.

Book Selection: anything goes for genre. We pick alphabetically by member last name unless the next person in our group is less than 3 months in because we don't want them to feel self conscious. As a pp said, book club opens up my selection so I'm reading stuff I wouldn't normally and I love that. We have members from age 22 to 82 from many religious and socially diverse backgrounds and that significantly impacts the discussion. Most of us love the different perspectives that gives us on any given topic. I always hear something I never would have considered and outside of my realm of experience and relish that. I don't think I'd want a book club where everybody agreed with me.

Location: Some of the ladies are retired and find it easier to host in their homes because they aren't navigating around the littles. This has worked very well for us and has mostly morphed into us going to one centrally located house unless someone else really wants to host or needs to for some reason (like I wanted to when our house was finished being painted).

Food: Host provides only the house, others provide snacks/bevvies. Bonus points if theme related but certainly not required. Big dollop of understanding for those that cannot provide due to circumstances, we'd have too much anyway and we're here for the company.

Format: we chit chat and grab snacks for about 30 minutes. read a little aloud about the author if we can find it and then open the floor for discussion. We have a list of book club type questions if we can find them for the selection available if the conversation lulls, but I don't think we've ever needed it. We finish up with the announcement of the next book and everyone pulling out calendars to pick the next date.

Some of our best discussions have been about books we all hated!

We do have one central leader. It didn't start that way but has certainly become so. She sends out the email the day after book club thanking those that came, saying we missed those that didn't, and stating the next book/author/ book club date. She also keeps an electronic list of the books we've read that has come in really handy as the group has grown and gone on much longer than we ever hoped. No accidental duplicate pics by a newbie! A week before book club she sends out a reminder of the book, date, and asks for a rough head count.

Book club is my favorite thing I do for me. I hope it becomes so for you!

[L'sMommy]

-We meet every month rotating through members' homes.
-There are usually about 10 members at any meeting. Sometimes it has been as few as 6 members. There are more members on the official list but each month there are reasons that some can't attend (conflicts, illness).
-Any genre goes, which I like because I read books I wouldn't pick for myself.
-Our meetings are casual and we usually have a list of discussion questions to glance at if discussion lags. But mostly people just toss out random questions/thoughts.
-There are light snacks and drinks, alcoholic and non-.

It's such a nice group, no drama or politics. I think it helps that we are all readers and not using the gatherings as a cover for socializing and gossip, as has happened in other clubs I was in.

This exactly.....with the exception that when we have spent 30+ minutes discussing the book, we do turn the conversation to gossip/socializing. Also, all of our members are moms of littles and are the same age. If someone can't make it, we don't change the date. Once the date is picked, it doesn't get moved unless over half the group cancels.

[WitMom]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I wonder if I should try to get things kicked off this summer, or if it's better to wait until fall.....hmmmm.

[L'sMommy]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I wonder if I should try to get things kicked off this summer, or if it's better to wait until fall.....hmmmm.

We started ours in June but I think we skipped getting together in August because it is such a heavy vacation month. You can't go wrong either way.