We are all rather busy in the evenings, there are six main members, so we keep it to a meeting every two months but choose two books. We do try to choose one book that is perhaps lighter and less thought-provoking than the second, but that doesn't always work out.
We do allow other guests to come along. We had more to start with, but some fell by the wayside - our book choices were too erudite apparently. As we are all great readers, we get through several books a week each so have many recommendations to hand, for each other, as well as the set book choices.
We start at 7.30pm and end whenever, tea, coffee, wine and soft drinks are dispensed freely, as are little healthyish nibbles, although one of us is a crispaholic. Our OHs refer to it as The Wine Club, and I have to admit that sometimes only half an hour is devoted to talking about the books! However, many other books are talked about, which easily accounts for perhaps longer than the half hour spent dissecting the set books. We do have one member who would like to discuss the books practically sentence by sentence, but fortunately she is easily distracted by a top-up.
I feel quite sad about various friends dropping out, but it is lovely to talk about books with like-minded people, and if you are the sort of person who finds it hard to read a book a month then perhaps it isn't for you, as some of our former members started to think of it as 'doing their homework', rather than finding it a pleasure.