Tell me about your book club

[justwondering72]

Where do you meet? How often? How do you organise membership, who's in and who's not? How do you organise / moderate your discussions? Are your discussions 'literary' or more layman? How do you choose the books? Do you have any rules for attendance or during the meeting?

I've recently joined a book group that a friend has been a member of for many years. Only been to one meeting so far, but the level of debate and discussion has disappointed me. They don't seem to have any rules for discussion: all talk at once, one or two dominant personalities taking over, etc. the whole discussion seemed to focus on whether the characters and their actions were deemed acceptable within the readers narrow views of life.

So I'm thinking of starting my own book group! tell me how your book clubs are run, what works and what the pitfalls are.

Our wine club book club is run in a very relaxed way. We meet once a mmonth and whoever is hosting selects the book.

The book discussion isn't the sole focus of our evening but we do have a bright group so it's often incisive if brief. We don't have rules for who talks, when, or set a context for our discussion.

In summary, it's all fairly loose! We've read some excellent books though, and the format works well for us.

We're just a group of friends who enjoy reading. Two have English degrees and I really enjoy hearing their evaluation of the books because I approach books in such a different way.

When we meet it's generally at my house and the first hour or two is spent catching up because we don't get to see much of each other these days. When we start discussing the book we make sure everyone gets their initial chance to share their thoughts and discussion comes naturally out of that. Most of us come with notes. We don't manage to meet as often as we might because we're busy people so sometimes it's a while since we've read the book.

We tend to take it in turns to suggest the next book and we keep a list of books we'd like to read. We also score each book. We used to have a complicated system with four different categories and comments but now we just do a straight forward mark out of 10.

It's the only book group I've ever been in so I've no idea how 'normal' we are! Probably not very

Similar to the others - we meet monthly/six weekly and the hosting and choosing rotates around the group. We've been meeting for about five years and the group hasn't really changed much in that time. One of our group has a book with all the scores we've given for our different choices for the last few years. We've done a wide range of books across the time - mainly fiction, but some non-fiction and some biographies. The worst/least popular books get the best debates it seems - Kate Adie's autobiography got a GREAT debate! We probably spend an hour talking about the book, then the rest of the evening putting the world to rights.
Our favourite month is December - we do our Secret Santa book so instead of one person choosing for the whole group, we each pick out a name of one of the others and have to choose them a book to read over the Christmas break. Whether we get it dead right or dead wrong, it's a lot of fun. We wrap them in newspaper so it's all anonymous - so we also have to guess who has bought us the book.

In a pub or wine bar
About once every 5 or 6 weeks, date of next meeting discussed at end of previous meeting and confirmed with non-attendees later.
You're a member if you show up more than once.
Discussions are not organised or moderated, if they needed to be I don't think we'd be having such a good time.
Our discussions aren't highly intellectual - we'll discuss whether we agree with the major decisions made by the characters, and agree which characters are gits. We might, depending on the book, notice some influences of other authors or allegorical themes which I guess you could call literary discussion. We probably only discuss the actual book for about half an hour, the rest of the meeting is about drinking wine more general topics of conversation.
The only rule is that if you haven't finished reading the book we aren't going to avoid spoiling the ending for you.
The next book is chosen by consensus, anyone can make suggestions. Out of common decency whoever recommended/chose the last book we read takes a back seat in discussions for the next book to ensure their tastes aren't dominating.

You sound like you are taking this a bit too seriously tbh. I suspect if you set up a well-organised book group with a structure and rules you deem correct, you may not get many members.

We meet once a month , been going for 8 years now. We rotate around houses , and host each month chooses the book for the coming month .There are 11 of us so we have July off.

Discussion varies according to the book , we also tend to celebrate birthdays and put the world to right etc.

You may be right FWAB- the only book club I'd heard of prior to this one was my sisters; they all have PhDs in American / English lit, and they have very robust, very literary discussions! I'm nowhere near that level. But I was hoping for / expecting something a bit more in depth than just being judgemental about the characters tbh. I've been a SAHM for 7 years, I guess I hoped joining a book club would get the old brain cells working again? The socialising is great, and I know that the group I have joined are very close knit, older than me, and have supported each other through some huge life upheavals.

So from all of your responses, book clubs are primarily opportunities to socialise with a purpose / theme? And being expected to take it seriously would kill off the fun side?

In my limited experience book groups tend not to be particularly high brow unless you join one attached to a bookshop, university dept etc .Have you looked at Good Reads there are some good online groups on there .

Our group is now about much more than the books if I am honest.We are all quite diverse but since we formed have had two births and we have also lost one of our members to a serious illness , this has bound us together in a way I am not sure any of us could have foreseen .Some of us are more serious about the books than others but we rub along pretty well and it would take a lot for someone to leave I think.

A university based book club might be a bit more intellectual. Right with you about the book club helping get brain cells working. But for me, that is the discipline of getting the book actually read and having a justification for getting a teeny tiny bit of quiet time darling could you possibly be in charge of bed-time tonight - I have to finish this book before the book club meeting - before I joined a book club my pre-kids reading rate of at least 35 a year plummeted to about 3 a year when I got overwhelmed with family responsibilities - now it's about 20 a year as I usually manage to read another book in between each book club book. Intellectual challenge and erudition is more than most book club members are after.

Ours started 10 years ago when two sisters invited three friends each, so we all knew two people well already. One member has left and two more joined. We meet every 6 weeks and hosting rotates. The hostess chooses the book. Often the challenge comes in starting & finishing something you would never have picked ! We don't have any rules and probably spend 40mins discussing the book and then get on with the eating.

My mum has gone to one for many years. Once a year they sit down and decide which books they're going to do and who will lead on each one. They take turns to host but the person hosting doesn't lead on that book. My friends and I think they spend about 5 mins on the book and the remaining 2hrs 55mins discussing their daughters' love lives. My friends and I know it as The Coven

We meet on the first Thursday of each month in a room upstairs at a pub. No membership limits, everyone welcome. No set books either, although we have a 'book of the year' which circulates if anyone fancies reading it. We basically get together and talk about whatever we happen to have been reading, one by one round the table. If several people have read a book then more of a discussion gets going, or if a particular book sounds interesting people will ask more questions about it. Sometimes people say they haven't actually read anything in the previous month, but they like to come along anyway and hear about what other people have been reading and pick up suggestions. We also swap books around, so if you're willing you just put one in the centre of the table and can borrow any that others are willing to lend. I never let my absolute favourites go though, you can't guarantee you will get them back!

We meet every month or so, and have two books each time. There's no pressure to read both (or any!). The idea is that they should be a bit different from each other.

Discussions of the books last for about 10 mins out of the evening (unless particularly good or bad). It's really just an excuse to meet up with friends, gossip and drink wine.

Nobody leads the discussion and we tend to pick the next book by a show of hands voting on random suggestions that people come up with.

We meet once a month, seven of us, and take turns to choose a book and host meeting providing crisps and wine. At the meeting we go round the group with everyone giving their views in turn. Have to say, one or two go on for far too long! not an easy one to sort out. We do spend a good bit of time chatting about the book,though. And we try to choose a different genre each time, and not pick a writer we've already done. Gets harder as the years go by! but fun.

We have 10 members (6 women, 4 men). All friends or friends of friends. Meet first Friday of every month, not everyone comes to every meeting. Books chosen in rotation. We discuss book for about an hour (after scoring out of 5 and arguing if halves are allowed!), then eat. May carry on talking about book, or other things we have read or films seen. Or kids/family etc. Two people with decent houses host and retired/non working people contribute more food and wine than me. I like them all but feel my wine (£2.49 from Aldi) and food choices don't quite cut the mustard.

Ours is much like Fish's above.

There's one run at the local Warerstones but I haven't been to it. I used to go to one 15 years ago at the Warerstones by Earls Court. Run by an enthusiastic American woman. Well run and more intellectual. (But I barely knew people's names after a whole year of wine & books.)

I belong to 2 book groups, each with 10 members. They are run slightly differently. Both meet monthly at each others' houses. Wine and nibbles are provided by the host, who also kicks off the discussion.

Book club 1 - host chooses book, gives out 10 copies at the previous meeting, so it's a surprise for everyone, and everyone reads the same copy. Level of debate is pretty high, we usually spend 1.5 - 2 hours talking exclusively about the book.

Book club 2 - we each choose our book at the beginning of the year and then compile a list of who is hosting which month. members then buy their own copies of the books, which means people have different editions or Kindle editions. Debate is not as intellectual, and usually lasts less than an hour before people start gossiping moving on to other subjects. Books are scored with a "winner" announced at the Christmas meal each year.

IMO, Book club 1 works better because everyone has the same copy of the book - so we tend to look up relevant passages which is very hard to do if you have different editions.

In both cases, we already knew each other as friends outside the book group so it wasn't a group of strangers coming together.

I enjoy both groups, but feel more stimulated by Book Club 1.

We've been going 10 years, originally started by the local library. After a couple of years the group became independent and started to take turns to host.
We keep a running list of books suggested by members, and borrow a reading group set from the library each month, which costs only £2-3 to reserve. We try to have seasonal books for Xmas and Halloween, and save any long books for the summer break.
Strictly tea and biscuits for us, except for Xmas and July when we go out for a meal, but it doesn't inhibit the discussions!