Starting a RL book club-any advice?

[SeaShellsDreamingOfSummer]

A group of friends and I are talking about starting a RL bookclub-has anyone got experience of running one? How do you organise the sessions and debates?

Any advice would be great!

Thank you :)

orry no advice I'm afraid - Just marking my place as I'm thinking of doing the same thing and would like to see what responses you get! Good luck!

Hopefully someone will come along then!

(btw, your name made me jump as I suddenly thought you could be one of my friends...but by your profile your not, just inspired by the same bit of sand and sea as me!! Small world :) )

About eight years ago a group of us started a book group and, with a few changes of members due to people moving away, we are still going strong! My advice would be to take turns at choosing the book and hosting the evening. We meet every once a month but not during school holidays. If no night suits everyone, alternate it. Our group is female only and membership has been between 10-15. Any more is hard to fit in unless you all have huge sitting rooms! We keep catering simple. Wine and soft drinks with crisps/nibbles to start followed by tea/coffee and cake (either homemade or shop bought). Books can be anything, the only rule is that they must be available in paperback. We decide on several books for the next few meetings in advance of discussing them to give members time to get them from the library or share them. It's no big deal if you haven't finished the book (or even started it!) Some books generate more discussion than others and as we have all got to know each other better, we sometimes spend way more time on general chat than on the book. When you have a few people together decide what you want from your club. The most important thing is to enjoy it! Good

luck!

Thanks! We were wondering about loosely using the Richard and Judy list as a guide just to get books I wouldn't think of into the mix, but then again we'd read alot of dross for the sake of a few modern classics ;)

Your set up sounds great-and I can see that in the future general chat may take over!!

Use your local library to get copies of books rather than buying. A friend does this for her book club and one librarian is very helpful in getting enough copies. They decide books 6 to 9 months in advance and give the list the librarian. Each club member is also a library member and is reponsible for their copy of the book.

Thanks! I'll get chatting to the local library then...I'm a bit of a book horder so there are some I'd like to buy and some loan. I didn't realise you could get multiple copies from the library :)

We limit our bookgroup to about eight people - which is comfortable enough to manage in a living room, and also not too many so that people feel they can have their say. One of our moved-away members sends her 'report' via email. We meet every four to five weeks on a convenient night, but it doesn't have to be a set night of the week.

We take it in turns to choose the books for the following month and bring along a few 'choices' or just a couple, so that the group can choose between them which one is our next read. One member is a librarian so they order a number of copies for us through the library system (though how long that will continue with govt cuts etc....) We tend not to choose books over 600 pages, and usually end up with a variety of genres/Young Adult/literary across the year.

We stop half-time to have coffee and cakes, or sometimes wine and nibbles. Our December meeting is a meal out, and sometimes a summer meal out too. If a film of a book we have read comes out, we try to go together to see it at the cinema.

The other half of our session we do "something else" - we do Top 10's, or write something creative (a haiku, a spring poem, a blurb for a story) or read out our favourite poems, or bits from books.

We don't follow a TV bookclub list as we find that the books get very samey. We started off by looking at the Top 100 books list that the BBC did 10 years ago, and finding a couple on there that no-one had read.

Good call re top 100-that's pretty much a wish list for me :)

I am a member of two book clubs which are run quite differently to each other.

Bookclub 1 has six female members and we have had two ladies leave and two ladies join in the 3-4 years we have been running. We meet each month excluding summer holidays. We always eat together, the hostess does nibbles and drinks and provides a main course (with carbs), someone else brings a salad and another brings a dessert. We rotate round our houses and the next time the three that didn't bring anything would provide the food. We used to decide together what to read next but that evolved into the hostess offering a choice of three or four titles which we chose between, and now we have decided that we want to read the Man Booker shortlist which we will start this month. We borrow from each other or the library or buy, but generally stick to paperbacks.

Bookclub 2 has 15+ female members and we usually have around 10-12 people turn up. The population of this bookclub changes reguarly, I am the longest standing member. We just have generous quantities of alcohol and nibbles. There is always a lot of other chatter that goes on but is a very friendly group. Often people haven't finished the book. The hostess for the evening chooses and buys 10? (paperback) copies of the book which she then sells to us to be discussed at the next meeting. The next meeting is booked to whomever it suits best for the next month. (*I think "book club" is a cover for "wineclub" for many members!) very sociable but not too serious.

Have fun

am a member of one RL bookclub at the moment and honorary member of one that I moved away from and still get info for each month!

old one was all women and we got together initially via a posting on MN. Take it in turns to host and provide wine/nibbles (not much important no huge cost). At each meeting the next date and hostess is chosen and hostess circulates a couple of books for us all to choose from (in case someone has read it recently). Books have to be out in paperback and usually we got them from library or second hand. Been going for about 5 years now. Once a year a meal out as a social.

Current book group is all women 10 of us. 6 weeks apart and we take it in turns to host (all live in same village). Catering is meant to be low key but cheese boards are gets super competitive!!
We give our library a list of books from time to time and which ever book they can get enough copies of that month is the book, so it's a surprise each time which one comes up! Bad point for me is we don't get any veto and I read a lot so often have already read it (and prefer not to reread) AND some of the choices are absolute dross imo. Several times I haven't finished the book it's been so dreadful (Richard and Judy spring to mind!). But I do like the fact you get to know people better via their book choice and it is always a fun evening. We have talked of a trip away (my sister's group has an annual weekend somewhere vaguely book related) but hasn't happened yet.

Do go ahead and i suggest you use a list to start you off for first 3 or 4 months and then you'll feel brave enough to choose!

I belong to a book club. Instead of reading the same book and discussing it at the meetings, we all read whatever we like and then discuss books we've enjoyed and pass them around to be shared.

Sorry, I think I've dredged up an old thread without realising it was old.

Our book club (affectionately known as LBC- the lightweight Book Club) has about 8 ladies, none of whom studied English beyond O Level. We take it in turn to host and provide wine and nibbles and discuss the last book. The host will have 3-4 books and we vote on the choice for the next meeting. Often pick old books- "classics" none of us read when we were at school. Consequently the choices are very varied and have included Graham Greene, Dickens, Nancy Mitford etc. This also means the books can be obtained from the local charity shop as well as the library!
Sadly I have taken two years out to do some law exams and I really miss the chats! Hoping they will let me back in eventually!

We have around 15 - 20 members, as any given month around 30-40% can't attend because of sick children, no babysitter, work or travel commitments, visitors etc. So typically around 8-10 people attend each meeting, which is perfect.

We meet every month, and we decide the books six months in advance, by a nominating and voting process (one nomination per person).

When the 6 books are chosen we alternate long and short, so you don't have two consecutive doorsteps. We only have fiction/novels. You are still welcome even if you've only read part of, or none of, the book.

There is no food involved, to keep expense and effort down for the host (which rotates every month), as we all have young children. The host just provides wine, water, maybe tea/coffee and nuts/crisps. However once a year, at Christmas, we do have a food night where everyone brings a dish, and we exchange books (second hand, always from our own bookshelves) as a Secret Santa present.

We meet for about 2.5 hours, and probably talk about the book for half of that time, the other half being general or related chat, or talk planning future book club events and ideas.

I love it, it's been a real life line for me!

Sorry, I don't know if I meant doorstoppers, or doorsteps? Ie War and Peace. I'm not sure...

I've been involved with a couple of different book groups over the years and I think there are already a lot of good ideas here from other posters. A couple of other things you might want to think about though are:

Book length - if you have a break for summer/school holidays this could be an ideal time for someone to choose a longer book

Lists - there are lots of websites with ideas for book choices and many libraries have information packs with ideas and tips

Questions - sometimes it is good to kick-start a meeting with a couple of set questions about the book choices, or a little bit about the history of the book/author. The Guardian and Independent online both do good book reviews/interviews with authors.

As already mentioned, it can be fun to arrange an outing or themed meeting for summer/xmas, and the xmas one is also a good time to do a book swap in lieu of presents.

HTH...good luck!

jellibelli - not that old a thread, you should see some of the dusty old stuff that gets bumped sometimes

I would recommend approaching the local library as many library services hold specific sets of books for reading groups. The set goes on our group library ticket for six weeks. One of the members collects the set before the meeting, and we either return them the same way or return them individually if, for example, someone missed the meeting or wants to finish reading it.

seashells - are you a Dorset lady if I remember?