Book Clubs

[BlessedOne04]

Does anyone belong to a book club?? My friends and I are starting one and we need ideas. Our first meeting is coming up and I need help coming up with activities (besides eating) and how to choose the books we read. Thanks and look foward to your ideas!

[nittanygirl]

A lot of books have discussion questions in the back, which can get conversations going. Also, if you don't want to just take suggestions for books, you could come up with a specific list (Oprah books, NY Times Bestsellers for 2011, etc)

[modorney]

My local library has suggestions, and even has sacks of all the same books for book clubs. You may want to check with your local library?

If your sorority has a mentor program or leadership retreats, often these include a management-style book, or life skills book for the undergraduates to read. You may want to pick out a few and see what your group likes?

Besides eating, there are lots of "ice-breaker" ideas? These work well if everyone is new. Perhaps a wine tasting? With the "expert" of the group talking through the wines? Or, each person can tell of the most unusual store, museum, or restaurant they visited in nearby Chicago?

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by BlessedOne04

Does anyone belong to a book club?? My friends and I are starting one and we need ideas. Our first meeting is coming up and I need help coming up with activities (besides eating) and how to choose the books we read. Thanks and look foward to your ideas!

Long details ahead:


My friends/colleagues and I have an awesome bookclub. Each member hosts a book club gathering. That member decides which book will be read, where the gathering will be held (usually at her house), what will be eaten, and if there will be additional activities. The book the host chooses can be as intense or as light hearted as the host wants it to be. Some book clubs can handle big topics and huge discussions--mine can--whereas some book clubs fall apart at the mere thought of a "controversial topic" and possible disagreement amongst them. You have to know your friends who are a part of your bookclub.

Some books have summaries and discussion items in the back but most do not. In fact, the best books tend not to have summaries and discussion items. LOL. Also, not everyone in the bookclub will read every book. Sometimes, people will only read when they are the one hosting the gathering. That is fine. We tell people that it does not matter if they did not read or finish reading the book. Just do not ruin it for those who did read...we will lovingly tell you to shut up if necessary.

My book club also does gift exchanges during the holidays and small Kwanzaa and other holiday/spiritual gatherings as part of regular book club meetings. Those of us who drink sometimes enjoy some libations during book club meetings if they are on a Saturday evening.

The first thing that my bookclub did was determine what bonded them (I am the newest member to the group) and made them create a bookclub. For starters, we are women of the African Diaspora (occasionally non-African Diasporic women come to a gathering) who have a whole lot of fun together, most of us are colleagues, we love to get into heated debates with each other (and anyone else), and we have similar (not the same) spiritual beliefs, and share exercise and eating habits. In other words, we have a lot of things in common but we are different enough to spark the heated debates.

I hate ice breakers regardless of what type of event it is. I hate them with a passion. I also hate party games regardless of what type of event it is. Since you are friends, I recommend sparing yourselves the ice breakers and party games unless they come "naturally" to your group. A wine tasting is just a fun activity for those who love wine, I would not bore it by calling it an "ice breaker" (). My group bonds through jokes, talking, and music. We typically only have a structure to our gatherings when it is time to discuss the books--unless we are celebrating a holiday together or something to that effect. The main point is to keep the book club fun and easy going. Do not bore each other. Even when we get into a heated debate during a gathering, we end with jokes and getting a second plate of a deliciously healthy dish.

[BTW, we invite our spouses and significant others to bookclub gatherings but most of the men refuse to partake in something in which they are outnumbered. If only women could opt out when we are outnumbered by men. ]

[angels&angles]

I'm in a pretty low key book club. It was started by a group of people who wanted a reason to read more, and wanted to find more/different books to read. I'm pretty much the only voracious reader in the group. We meet once a month, and everyone brings suggestions to the meeting for the next book. Sometimes we have a theme for the next meeting ("Everyone bring ideas about nonfiction to read"), but mostly it's pretty open.

Someone different hosts each meeting, and that person is in charge of providing location and food (most people host at their house, but we've also met at bars), everyone else brings drinks. Usually wine. Often, if there's an impasse about what book to choose, the next host will get the deciding vote, but most people are pretty laid back and there's generally a consensus.

One thing to think about is how much you think people will actually read. As I mentioned earlier, most of my book club are not readers, so we have to stick to shorter and/or easier stuff. For instance, we took 2 months to read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (which I LOVED), and a lot of them still didn't finish it. People who haven't read most of, or haven't started the book are encouraged not to come (we do other non book-related activities throughout the month, but this is when we discuss the book, which is pretty boring for anyone who hasn't read it, and is thus more likely to try to divert the conversation). Lots of people have only been to one or two meetings.

We don't really do "other activities" -- if there are newcomers, we'll all go around and introduce ourselves, but we generally have a half hour of chatting/drinking/eating while everyone gets there, another hour of discussion, and then people start to leave. It's a book club -- do games some other time.

We don't do a lot of "discussion questions" -- we just talk about what we liked/didn't like, talk about themes, answer and lingering questions, etc. It's not a very intellectual book club, it's more about getting people to read and finding new and exciting things. A lot of us will exchange books even if we're not reading them for the next meeting.

Also, we're a mixed gender club. It's about 60/40 F/M. Some are couples, but there's a bunch of guys who are just part of the group and like to read. They're actually some of our most enthusiastic discussers.

[christiangirl]

My book club made our own list. We each submitted 3 books that we had wanted to read but had not yet. There's about 6 or 7 of us so that's over 40 books to choose from. Then we just vote on which has the most interesting title or that we've heard the most about. That's the one we choose for the month.

[Still BLUTANG]

one of my book clubs does themes. people are free to read a book that falls into that month's broad or very specific theme, and then we discuss. It's weird but it works.

Another club is specifically sci-fi, and we meet every other month. The list is decided pretty far in advance, so people know the next few books we'll be discussing.

[BlessedOne04]

I am sad to report that my book club never did catch. It was good to re-read the posts and get encouragement on starting a bookclub. I decided that this time I want to join, not start at first!

[DrPhil]

I'm sorry to hear that.

I hosted a wonderful gathering 3 weeks ago. I'm a good cook and I had a theme for the food and wines that everyone loved. I love it when my guests are happy.

My friend is hosting our next gathering in 3 weeks. I look forward to the reading, the food, the wine, and the laughter.

[BlessedOne04]

Sounds like fun. Maybe room for area?

[RaggedyAnn]

I know this is the Delta Sigma Theta board, but I hope you don't mind me sharing in the discussion. We reinvented our book club, after it fizzled the first year, and we've been quite successful this time around.

What is making our book club successful this time around is:
We picked all the books for the year. We're on the 10th book now. How we did it is we went for a GNO and we all brought 2-3 suggestions. Everyone got to choose one book and then everyone voted on the rest.
We have a set day and meeting time. For example, the third Thursday of every month at such and such time. We can then schedule around it. If we get to a month and figure out it doesn't work for us, we must reschedule within a week, or we go to the next book. (this happened one month) That's what had made the first run fizzle, so that's why we made this rule. (#2)
#1 is you must read the book, or make a real effort to be able to join the discussion.
#3 is the book has to be less than 500 pages, or it gets divided into 2 months.

For activities and discussions, we read the book and pick a theme for food. We've done vegan, German, Chinese, etc. If we can pick a location, like a boat to host that goes along with the theme we do that. We've also scheduled a couple of field trips to go along with books we've read, but not during that day. We'll play a game of Scrabble or Bananagrams if the meeting runs quick.

Our usual schedule is 2.5-3 hours, where we eat and talk (gossip) for about an hour, talk about the book for an hour or so and then just chat some more and then the mamas all go pick up their kids from school. When we've done night meetings, we usually go out somewhere.

I hope you're able to get it up and running again! Oh, and we have a private Facebook group, so we post there all the time with inside jokes and bits of info all the time, which keeps us together. We also use the Invites option to send out a reminder of when we are meeting.

[BlessedOne04]

This sounds really organized! I may need to borrow some of these tips!

[angels&angles]

OK, I originally did not realize this was a DST forum, so apologies. But also I really want to express to SOMEONE how disappointed I am that my book club chose "50 Shades of Grey" as our next book. #$$#^%$.

Sorry for typos book club just ended and there was much wine.