Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think if you are in a book club you should read the book?

27 replies

BookClubGrinch · 02/03/2025 20:53

Joined a book club through a friend. We meet at a village hall and the books are provided each month in the village by a company. I don't know most of the people there so thought it would be more of a "proper" book club (I don't know what I mean by that but I guess not just an excuse to drink wine).

I am finding every week at least 50% have not read or finished the book so either don't want to talk about it or shoot down other people's thoughts on the book despite not actually having a clue. Others simply don't turn up. So mostly the discussion is just random tv programmes.

I am all for general relaxed talking and snacking as well as talking about the book - but I kind of feel like - what's the point of hanging out with people you don't really know if you have not read the book? Is this what book clubs are like?

OP posts:
bluesatin · 02/03/2025 23:01

Hmm. That does seem a little pointless. I belong to a book group, but we were all acquaintances when we formed it.. we all make an attempt to read the book even if we don't succeed. However, there is quite a lot of wine drinking and gossip (we all live in the same small area so the gossip is generally about local politics and the failings of the planning department).
Perhaps if you persist the non- readers will drop out or maybe you will find a sub-set who are more dedicated or more interesting generally?

CarpetKnees · 02/03/2025 23:05

I think there is more than one type of book club.

Some are to read and discuss weighty volumes.
Some are to read something lighter, but discuss it later
Some are just an excuse to get out of the house and socialise.

All serve a great purpose, and are equally worthy, it's just that everyone isn't looking for the same thing. The luck is finding (or starting one yourself?) whichever one it is that you are looking for.

Oxgodby · 02/03/2025 23:12

I think you need a different book group. I alternate between two which are both run by local bookshops. One chooses books via a vote between 3/4 options, the other just selects. Everyone’s always read the book.

lottiegarbanzo · 03/03/2025 06:36

Join a different group

Bernadinetta · 03/03/2025 06:38

A week is quite a short time for most people to read a book. Maybe meeting monthly would work better.

PermanentTemporary · 03/03/2025 06:39

I'd give it time. I joined a community book club where I didn't know anybody. It was quite big. I would say tbh that most people did read the book but not all (including me sometimes).

21 years later 6 of us are still meeting and are really close friends. We still don't always finish the book...

Look out for the ones who do read the book and/or you get on with. Enjoy the books yourself.

CaptainMyCaptain · 03/03/2025 07:21

I am in a book club. Occasionally people haven't managed to get hold of the book in time so they listen to the discussion and read it later. Sometimes people get part of the way through and hate it so much or are bored by it and give up. They can then contribute to the discussion by saying why they didn't like it. Also there are different kinds of book club some involve members taking turns to do a sort of presentation, I'd hate that. I've heard of a book club where you're not allowed to listen to an audio book which I think is a legitimate thing for busy people to do.

Join a different book club if you don't like that one or start your own.

WeirdyBeardyMarrowBabyLady · 03/03/2025 07:25

Is it weekly or monthly?

CaptainMyCaptain · 03/03/2025 07:27

WeirdyBeardyMarrowBabyLady · 03/03/2025 07:25

Is it weekly or monthly?

Who was that question directed at? The OP said weekly. My book club is monthly.

SwanOfThoseThings · 03/03/2025 07:33

This is why I've never joined a book club, though I am an avid reader and really enjoy discussing books. I strongly dislike feeling obliged to finish a book that doesn't interest me. A book club where this was OK might sound a good option but then it would be frustrating if I had enjoyed the book and no one else had finished it to discuss it.

GroovyChick87 · 03/03/2025 07:40

I can see how the talk veers from the book and onto gossip and general chat if it's a group of friends having a catch up. I suppose there's only so long you can talk about a book. I think maybe you could look for a more structured type of book group but I don't really know a lot about book groups. I couldn't read a book and talk about it if I had no interest in it, I like to choose my own books and read at my own pace.

SheilaFentiman · 03/03/2025 07:45

I read a lot but I would struggle to finish a specific book every single week. If I was busy or didn’t enjoy it, say.

CaptainMyCaptain · 03/03/2025 07:47

When we've finished talking about the book we do talk about other things but it tends to be other books we recommend to each other and sometimes plays, films or TV not general chit chat. We've been going for about 10 years (we met outside when allowed during covid) and I only knew two members beforehand but they are all now friends. If one of us wants someone to go to the theatre or cinema someone in the group will always be willing to join them. We meet during the day so we are all retired or working part-time which probably makes a difference.

SheherazadesSpringNonsense · 03/03/2025 08:20

I don’t mind people not finishing the book, if they’ve given it a go. My pet hate is people who haven’t finished it but say oh don’t tell me how it ends! Then you can’t discuss it at all. Our book group has just folded after about 15 years, partly because of this. It’s a bit sad.

Original poster
BookClubGrinch · 03/03/2025 08:24

SheherazadesSpringNonsense · 03/03/2025 08:20

I don’t mind people not finishing the book, if they’ve given it a go. My pet hate is people who haven’t finished it but say oh don’t tell me how it ends! Then you can’t discuss it at all. Our book group has just folded after about 15 years, partly because of this. It’s a bit sad.

That would drive me absolutely insane

OP posts:
Original poster
BookClubGrinch · 03/03/2025 08:25

Sorry I meant monthly. Don’t know why I said weekly

OP posts:
Diningtableornot · 03/03/2025 08:29

Sorry I meant monthly. Don’t know why I said weekly
Maybe it feels as if you are there longer than you are!
If the group is already established then you may not have much chance of changing its ethos. I don't mind people not reading the book so long as they listen to people who have and join in discussions about the issues raised. Stopping other people from talking about it and shouting other people down is bad behaviour but if it's normally tolerated you might need to find another group.

hopeishere · 03/03/2025 08:31

I'm in a formal one where there is a paid facilitator who leads the discussion. I don't really know any of the other people attending yet.

I'm in another one where we are now friends and we sometimes discuss the book!!

CaptainMyCaptain · 03/03/2025 08:53

SheherazadesSpringNonsense · 03/03/2025 08:20

I don’t mind people not finishing the book, if they’ve given it a go. My pet hate is people who haven’t finished it but say oh don’t tell me how it ends! Then you can’t discuss it at all. Our book group has just folded after about 15 years, partly because of this. It’s a bit sad.

It is completely unreasonable to try and stop other people talking about the book. If anyone is that bothered they shouldn't go.

ZookeeperSE · 03/03/2025 09:44

I was a voracious reader until I joined a book club. Enforced reading of boring, badly written, books really stunted my enjoyment. I gamely ploughed through some of the most awful books ever written (imo). There were a couple I just couldn’t finish though, at least I could add to the discussion on why I thought them awful I suppose 😁. And it meant I didn’t have time to read other things, I still haven’t got back to where I was before book club (and now spend far too much time on mumsnet…). Enjoyed the coffee and chat though.

Allywill · 03/03/2025 09:50

my daughter goes to one where they just discuss the books they are reading at the moment. ie no set book which i always thought was a bit odd.

Oxgodby · 03/03/2025 09:57

ZookeeperSE · 03/03/2025 09:44

I was a voracious reader until I joined a book club. Enforced reading of boring, badly written, books really stunted my enjoyment. I gamely ploughed through some of the most awful books ever written (imo). There were a couple I just couldn’t finish though, at least I could add to the discussion on why I thought them awful I suppose 😁. And it meant I didn’t have time to read other things, I still haven’t got back to where I was before book club (and now spend far too much time on mumsnet…). Enjoyed the coffee and chat though.

I don’t mind anyone talking about why they disliked the novel, but it’s a bit wearying if they just keep reiterating that it was ‘awful’, or that they hated the heroine, or they appear to be blaming it because they thought it was going to be an entirely different type of novel and it wasn’t.

I was at two different book groups last year where the latter took up an awful lot of floorspace — one man could not get past the lack of hard science in Becky Chambers’ Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (which makes it very clear from the blurb that it’s ‘cosy’ sci-fi, interested primarily in the relationships between different species living together on an extended voyage on a spaceship, not in the mechanics of space flight or time travel), and was totally outraged it wasn’t hard sci-fi. And a woman seemed terribly outraged that Una Mannion’s A Crooked Tree didn’t include things she would have included if she’d written an Irish-American coming-of-age novel set in 1980s Pennsylvania.

UninterestingFirstPost · 03/03/2025 10:07

In my book group, usually a third haven’t read the book but there’s never any blocking of the discussion by those who have. One time I was the only one who had read it and we still had an interesting discussion. I usually do read it but once or twice I have ordered it and it just hasn’t arrived. For me it’s a way of meeting well-read people and talking about literature in general rather than focusing on one specific book. You may have to keep looking to find one you gel with.

RubyTuesday48 · 03/03/2025 10:11

I also belong to a book group that meets monthly set up by the local literary society. Most of us do complete reading the book but I am finding very few of the books enjoyable to read and sometimes it's just a slog to get through it.
Depending on the number of attendees (anything between 4 and 10) we talk about the book or issues brought up from the book's contents.
I originally joined to meet new people but have found over the 15 months it's been running that attendees are transient so not fulfilling my aims for joining.

TeaRoseTallulah · 03/03/2025 10:13

Find a different one that suits you more.

I have been a member of one that was very serious and the one I've been part of for 17 years is very relaxed.

I've just joined another one recently that is a bit more structured but still lots of general chat.