I need help starting my book club!

good work

Hi there Allison Reader - hope your new book club is doing well and that you are enjoying your discussions. One thing no one has yet mentioned is how to structure your discussion so that everyone participates. Our book club has a rule, began when we had 8-10 people coming every month, but still continued now that we are few.........which is, we go around the group first and each person gives a 2-3 minute statement about whether she liked the book or not, and why - no one is permitted to interrupt or to divert the discussion at this point. Then, after everyone has had her chance to speak, we have general discussion among the group. We are small enough that we don't need to raise hands to speak, but you might find that helpful if you get up around 10 or so.

We instituted that rule very early on, as we found that the highly verbal people will have opinions about everything, and tend to dominate the conversation. That would result in some people not being heard from at all. Not good. Also, you don't necessarily want to put people on the spot and say, "what did YOU think, Mary?" Going around the room one by one, with a time limit, ensures everyone has a turn to express her views.

Another rule we have, (rarely invoked, thank goodness), is that one person can prevent a book from being selected for discussion. If someone has read a book and really hated it, and is against its selection, we bow to that person's opinion and pass on it. Occasionally a member will say they didn't like a book, but are willing to give it a second chance and will go along with including it in our books for the year. Sometimes those individuals have changed their minds on second reading, and sometimes not.

Glenda

I took into account all the wonderful advice each of you gave me. I ended up sending out a list of 10 books with summaries (most coming directly from Bookmarks!). People voted on which one to start with. It looks like we will have our first meeting in December with around 13 people saying they can make it...hopefully a few won't come and we'll have a more intimate group of 8-10. At that meeting I'm going to have people come with books they would like the club to read and we'll choose the next few from there. We are reading "Born on a Blue Day" by Daniel Tammet for the first meeting. It's REALLY interesting and a fast read (it's about an autistic savant, written by himself... which is amazing!)

Anyway, I just love this online forum...the advice I got was great and I love reading the other discussions. I'll let you all know how our first meeting goes!

Alison

Teacher too! I have done 3 adult groups and one kids group:

I have had to start 3 differnt bookclub in my life, and feel like I have it down to an art. I am sure all 25 will not come - it never turns out that way - you will likely end up with a core group of half that size. Here are some tips:

Never have more than 12 people in the 'club' if it is traditional style. Meaning that if there are 12 people you are going to get 8-10 that actually read it and show up to the meetings. This is an ideal number for greoup discussions. If there are more than this you will get many side discussions going on, and people dont listen as well to each other.

Dont be afraid to have a question ready, or a passage on hand to read if you notice that the conversation is getting way off topic for too long. You are the leader, so you are responsible for making sure that it stays as a book discussion. All those who came put in atleast 8 hours of their life into the average book, so make sure you chat for a minimum on book related items. You can have gossip and 'off' time before and after the discussion.

Consider using a reading group guide from all the many online links - most are free. I find them a little tedious to go through and boring in fact. I skim them for a few good questions and modify them as well. I purchase for 7$ a great 75-100 page 'reader and leader' manual that gives you all kids of resources for your particular book. Here is their link if you are interested. http://www.bookclubinabox.com/

Allow your group members to feel like they have a choice in the book selection. Here is what I consider the golden way: If you are starting off with 8 people, then at the first meeting you should call it your 'book selection' meeting. Have each of them bring 2 (ONLY TWO!!) books that they would like to see the club reading. At this meeting that person talks about their two books and summarizes it either from their personal knowledge of the book, or from an online review. Then the rest of the group votes on which of the two they would prefer. Each person will do the same. Voila. By then end you have 8 books for the year, each person had contributed one, and the rest of the group feels like they have had a say in the selection procedure. Everyone is happy. I have done this with three different groups and it works beautifully. I 'suggest' that they recommend a prize winner such as booker, giller, pulitzer, national book award or orange so that they ensure quality. No one wants to waste their precious time reading junk. Prize winners help weed out the risk of a bad title.

Have fun stuff planned every once in a while - play literary trivia, do a bookswap at christmas, go to one of the places mentioned in the book, have thematic foods related to the books - this makes your group 'special' At the end of your 'year' together have an 'academy awards' for the books that you read. Make this a champagne evening, people can come dressed as their favourite character from the year, and then you will announce the best and worst book of the year and provide a little prize for the person who recommended the best book of the year. You of course will have polled the group before the meeting. It is especailly nice if you get comments from the group as to why they voted their best and worst and read some of these at your academy awards.

Prepare optional handouts for people to read.

Pass around your copy of bookmarks magazine to get all the members interested in subscribing

Phew - those are just some of my quick ideas. Good Luck

Natalie
Trailblazer - France

My book club has a different member host the meeting each month. The host selects a book and we usually stick to fiction, but we have read a few non-fiction books from time to time. I would recommend not choosing anything to long or difficult to read. Our club generally sticks to a contempory fiction theme. I would definately recommend A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hossieni. This was a beautiful book that you don't want to put down, so it is a quick read and will provide plenty of topics for discussion. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See was also a very popular pick. This was a beautifully and sensitive written drama of the path that friendship can lead us down. If you were leaning more toward a classic title, I would recommend To Kill a Mockingbird or Jane Eyre to get you started. Good luck to you in your new group. Enjoy Reading!

I host a bookclub and I always suggest three or four titles, then let people vote. I also encourage people to suggest titles, although I ultimately have veto power. We started with In Cold Blood by Truman Capote since it was easy and the movie had recently come out. One of our very best discussions came from Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. Half of the group hated it, half loved it. The discussion was fantastic. Another great discussion came from The Inheritance of Loss by Kirin Desai. Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem is a fun read and not too long, plus he's a great writer. I think Plainsong by Kent Haruf would be a great starting book as well. It's beautifully written, fairly short, and touches on a lot of great discussion topics. Good luck!

Alison,

I've been meaning to write-up a whole "Starting a book group" article, gathering together all the advice we've heard and developed on our own after interacting with so many groups.

Books to start with? I'll throw out a few, and I'll include links to the publisher's reading group guides, as those might be helpful to you if the discussion lags. Eve mentioned one that many groups love: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. You almost can't be a book group these days without reading it, though many folks think his more recent work, A Thousand Splendid Suns (Bookmarks review, Reading Guide), is the better book. Staying with recently released fiction, you could also take a look at Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See, the 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winner March by Geraldine Brooks, or the 2005 Pulitzer-winner Gilead (PDF reading guide) by Marilynne Robinson. I just realized that we need to get our reviews of those books online!

Other quick thoughts:
- have a process in mind for picking the next book before the group meets. That discussion can often turn into a free-for-all at the end of the night. A lot of different systems can work: he or she who hosts picks the book, someone submits a list of suggestions and the group votes, the group compiles a list of suggestions from its members and then votes, etc.
- encourage people not to recommend or vote for a book they've read before. It's amazing how many people do this.
- 25 folks is a lot, so monitor how actual attendance turns out.

Let us know how it goes!

Jon
Editor & Publisher, Bookmarks

Hi Alison,
As a higher ed teacher, I can recommend the following book: The Kite Runner. This was a book we used for our first year seminar for freshmen. I've read it twice and found it even better on the second reading (-:

I should think to get started, you'd all settle on one book and then use a wiki or group blog to post your comments etc on the book. Many free wiki's are available and you could use it as a means of collaborating on book discussions. Just a thought (-: