Book clubs

[Jellybelly15]

I really want to join a book club and have people to discuss current reads with. I don't think there any local to me that I know of and they wouldnt be operating at the minute anyway. Anyone know of any good online ones? Anyone part of a book club and how does it work?

I'd love to find one too. I used to be part of a great one, but when I moved area I couldn't find anything similar.

I dip in and out of the 50 books thread, there is a lot of general chat about books on there, with no pressure at all to read 50 books. I am also a member of several FB groups, but these are quite large (10k+ members) so while the chat is good you don't tend to run into the same person twice!

Facebook Book Club - a big but friendly group, members from all over the world.

Women Reading Great Books - very big group, used to be my favourite, but the tone has been a bit tense over US political stuff and CV over the last few weeks, I'm giving it a bit of a rest, but I will hopefully go back.

Lost in a Good Book - I like this one, I have an impression there are more UK readers in this one, but it's hard to say. There are certainly people from all over.

@Jellybelly15 There's a Facebook group called the Literary Isolationists Club (set up by the Literary Gift Company).

Every week there is a discussion around a theme. I think this week is "Islands", previous weeks have included "Secrets" and "Families". So you basically read whatever you want based on the theme, and one of the mods asks several questions over the evening about the theme/books people have chosen.

I think they "meet" on a Tuesday, but threads are started during the week.

Not quite the same as traditional bookclub where everyone reads the same thing, but still fun.

The writer Clare Mackintosh has a book club in Facebook and that seems to be very active. Plus there’s the Reese Witherspoon one on Instagram.

My book group had to stop due to Covid and people refused to meet online as they are technophobes.

I'd be interested in a small online one, zoom or teams if anyone fancies it.

I read so many books that I would never have picked up because of my book group. We had been meeting 16 years and read nearly 200 books. I do miss it.

I am part of a recently formed club as explained below. Do you have a local community Facebook page that you could ask on to see if anyone near to you is interested in starting one with you for after lockdown? I'm sure a lot of venues would welcome you with open arms once they start to open.

If not have you checked out Goodreads, there are lots of groups and discussions on there.

Our local pub landlady posted about starting a club on the community Facebook page at Christmas and had 30 people sign up. The first 3 meetings had about 12 people turn up. We moved online through lockdown, the first month typing messages which was carnage, the next month was a group FB messenger video call, then we tried FB rooms which didn't really work so we went back to the group call. Only about 8 of us are willing to do it via video, we don't mind if people join but don't turn their camera on.. Most people didn't have Zoom so didn't want to faff with that. We will have a quick rehash of the books from during lockdown for anyone that couldn't join in once we have the first face to face meeting. We meet every 4 weeks, but have left the next one for 6 as we are hoping me might be able to meet in the beer garden if restrictions relax.

How it works, for the first meeting the organiser chose a book to get us started, she then brought 3 suggestions. One person was nominated to choose a book from these three and then had to bring 3 suggestions for the next meeting. After that someone else chose from the three and then brought 3 suggestions and so on. It seems to work.

We have a few rules. Your 3 suggestions must be books you haven't already read (it doesn't matter if anyone else has). You cannot nominate something that was in a previous suggestion list and not chosen and the book must be affordable, ie not recently released in hardback only. We have an unwritten upper limit of £7, but most tend to be around the £5 or under mark. We are pretty good at sharing paperbacks round if anyone is struggling to afford a book or get hold of a copy. A few people snap up the cheapest ebay copy and then pass it on.

I hope you manage to find or start a group.

The book group I used to be a member of, and would love to find similar again, used to run like this.

We always had around 10 members, and we took it in turn to host. We met once a month and the host would provide soft drinks, tea/coffee and nibbles, some people baked. If people wanted wine they would bring their own. We didn't meet August (too difficult with lots of people on holiday) and in Dec we'd have a meal out and a book secret santa when you'd buy a nice edition of a book you think everyone should read.
We'd discuss the book we'd read that month, and then the host would propose three books for next month and we'd take a vote. We would always make sure it was available on Kindle and Audible as well as generally available as a hardback.

I met some good people and read some books that I would never picked up otherwise.