Book Club (in RL) etiquette regarding choosing the next book

[forkhandles]

I'm in a book club and we've only had two meetings. So far it hasn't come up, but I'm wondering what happens when someone has read the book that's suggested next?

Do you have a second choice up your sleeve? Put forward two and let the others choose? Or make them re-read it

You can still talk about it, even if you've read it before. In fact we did a few at our book group where we each chose one of our favourite books for everyone to read. Worked well.

In our book group we tend to choose a book that someone has read so that they can say if they think it would be a good reading group choice iyswim. We choose about 5 books in go so we can get our free Amazon postage and all dsicuss which books we'd like to choose together.

We just re-read (in fact, we've done books that at least one person in the group has previously read and HATED) - but our book club has a very odd individual style of book choosing, which involves rolling lists,a mix of themed and non-themed sessions, & two vote mechanism for choosing the book ...

In fact, I reckon about 1 in 4 of the books my book club have done have been rereads for me...

I wouldn't mind re-reading if it was something I hadn't read in a while, but if it was something like The Kite Runner which I'd read recently I don't think I would want to. But would you just have to go with it, or is it out of order to say your not to keen?

that's not a bad idea chocolateshoes to choose in advance, we've just been kind of announcing it on the night.

really Mybestfriend, 1 in 4 is higher than I thought. What's a two vote mechanism?

if you organise in advance you can also use your library - and then you can order a set of books for those who don't want to buy their own.

cunning

We democratically decide 2 books - usually quite different, and then we read one or both of them. One of the books is often one that someone has read and is recommending to the rest of us. If someone had read both books, we would change one of them.

Everyone in my book club puts five choices into a hat, then at each meeting two get picked out and one is discarded (we pick two so there's a choice if e.g. the same person's choice comes out two months running). Because of the randomness, we all just tend to read whatever it is, even if someone's read it before; a while back Catch-22 came out, which I and a few others had read tons of times, so on that occasion I just skimmed through again to remind myself. Other times, when something like Pride and Prejudice has come out, some members have chosen not to re-read it - you can still talk about it, after all.

2 vote mechanism. We always have about 5/6 on a shortlist. Everyone then gets two votes (means that we end up with something everyone quite likes, rather than a book that the majority definately like, if that makes sense. Eg last time our choice ended up as Anna Karenina - the first choices were quite wide, but it got lots of second votes. Theoretically, it leads to 'safer' bets, but in our book club (known for only choosing books which include weird sex of some type) that certainly hasn't been the case!

1 in 4 is partly because:
a) I did Eng lit & read indiscrimatedly widely
b) I tend to suggest a lot of books
c) a lot of them are things I read a long time ago & was very happy to reread as an adult (Wasp Factory, The Tempest, 1984 etc etc)

Our local library will also provide full sets (8 I think) of books for book clubs - they have a list of everything they have available.

thanks for all your ideas

The person who hosts chooses the book with us. Last year we picked genres out of a hat at teh start of a year and then came up with a selection that fitted that genre and everyone voted on which one to read.

This year its 'what you have waiting to be read on your bookshelf'. The second month was one I'd read and I was asked if it was ok to re-read. I didn't mind them doing it but I didn't re-read as I hadn't long read it (it was quite nice to have a month off !).