Does anyone attend a book group?

[Springfern]

I'm thinking of joining one and looking for experiences. If you do go to one do you get alot out of it? Do you have to prepare things to say? Is it formal/social? Thanks

I did attend a club for about 3 sessions, listen to the same 3 people overtalk and repeat themselves continuously. Everybody else spoke for about 30 seconds and was very nice. Stopped going as I didn’t want to pay to listen to those 3

Yes, I love mine. I’ve been going for 14 years. It’s the last Thursday of every month and that date is sacrosanct. I know my book group buddies better than my own family. We talk about the book and score it (going round in a circle from the chooser onwards) and then drink wine and eat cheese.

I’ve been in one for a year, weren’t a room in a local hall. Meet once a month where one person chooses the book we will read, we discuss the previous book; usually wander into all sorts! We all take a turn providing cakes/tea/coffee etc. It’s a nice group, good mix of women.

The second two experiences sound great, not sure I'd be happy with ivykatys group. My local Waterstones holds one, I was thinking of going to that.

I tried one, and had the same experience as IvyKaty44, unfortunately. It seemed to be dominated by a few members whose opinions were the only ones which mattered apparently. Nobody else was brave enough to speak at all. I was also very disappointed that the book was only spoken about briefly, and was swamped by opinions about everything else in their lives, from the neighbour's dog to the parking problems in the high street.

I made an excuse after a couple of weeks, and haven't tried again. I had high hopes but was very disappointed.

Ours is not normal (!). I mean there is no in depth discussion, mainly because we each choose a book a month so we are not all on the same book let alone the same page. We have a good time drinking and eating (though we tend to meet in a cafe now so not as much fun).

Our books this month are Convenience store woman, Salt path, Dark Sacred night, can't remember the others!

Between 8 and 10 of us meet in a local pub once a month. Probably half the time is spent talking about the book and the other general chit chat. They are a nice group and I enjoy it a lot. All women though...

Currently doing Pride & Prejudice. Controversial at the time, not so now, but you can make it far more fun discussing Mr Darcy & co with a few friends in the local coffee shop and a slice of lavender & honey cake.

I want to join a book club. But I feel that inspired by my new very very scary book list, it needs to be hosted at night in some dark woods, where we all sit around a fire and use torches

@ShippingNews was it the same group...? 🤫😬😳

DP and I have joined a couples book club. It’s not as wretch inducing as you might think. We actually really enjoy it. We both love to read and it’s a great way to socialise. There’s 12 people in our group now and it’s a good mix of people. We take it in turns to host and we’ll put on a grazing table (our friends are posh so we have had to up our game on the food front!).

I think it depends on what you want from a book group.

I joined mine as I was in a new city and didn't really know anyone.

Now nearly 15 years later, we've read some incredible books and had some really thought provoking conversations. I've read things that I'd have never thought to pick up if it wasn't a book group book.

But also in that time we've seen every aspect of each others lives: new relationships, work achievements and redundancies, marriages, ivf, babies, step parenting, divorces and illness. We started as strangers but now my most trusted friends.

These days we always suggest a book, it's often read but only discussed fleetingly. I always say my book group is like a women's support group with some literature thrown in for free. I wouldn't be without my book group gang.

I'm inspired by the lovely stories of friendship on here. I'm 30 and have a lot of friends of a similar age, not many of whom read the same sort of books as me or want to talk about books at all. I'd would be great to make some intergenerational friendships with like minded women. I'm gonna keep looking until I find a good group!

I’ve just discovered my local Waterstones in Cheltenham has one and am thinking of trying that next month-spring fern where are you?.

I'm Brighton area, Meduse. It must be a common thing that Waterstones do. I hope you enjoy it!

I sometimes think it would be nice to be in a 'real' book club. We are so disorganised. But on the other hand I can think how hard it would be to moan about a book everyone praises to the skies and if we had to do a 'postmortem' on how great it was I think I would lose the will to live.

I've been a few times to the book club at my local Waterstones, and really enjoyed it. Met a great group of people and looked forward to going even if I hadn't enjoyed the book! There was no pressure or expectation to turn up every time, most people had finished the book but there was no pressure to have finished, and the discussions were always really good, with very insightful contributions, and on-topic.

The book selection might be more restricted than at a private book club, as the employee leading the group will need you to choose from books which they can sell to you. But it totally depends on the branch - ours was a small branch, so we frequently selected from recently published paperbacks from the buy-one-get-one-half-price tables (but not always, and it was always our choice, we went with the majority vote). Some of the books discussed: The Salt Path, The Refugees, The Immortalists, The Death of the Fronsac, War of the Worlds, The Western Winds.

You can search the Waterstones website for bookclubs (a category in the event search) - right now it looks like 75% of this months book clubs have picked The Handmaids Tale

I've been in two. One I left for practical (travel) reasons but also because I felt I was negative about every book 😁 so felt I wasn't a good member. And resented reading crap books.

And then another like ivykaty44's. The organiser was rubbish - no prepared discussion questions, no intros of new people, just aimless "Yeah, it was good" from some people. Lots only came once. I stayed longer than I should because a) hoped it'd get better and b) an author came twice who was quite interesting.

Seven in our group. We meet first Monday in the month, and whoever chooses the book hosts it, we all take turns. If it's your turn,you provide wine and crisps, and start the discussion, then everyone takes a turn to give their say. Works well.