book clubs - has anyone done this or is a member of one?

[bossykate]

not talking about internet based book clubs, but the real life variety!

have been thinking for a while about starting a book club for working mums in my area - the idea being that mothers could meet eachother without kids and have something to talk about other than the inevitable child oriented conversations. would also encourage me to read more challenging works and not to lapse into detective fiction whenever i'm feeling the need for mental chewing gum!

anyone done this or a member of a book club? is your group made up of existing friends or to bring strangers together? how does it work? what are the pros and cons?

any comments very much appreciated.

thanks in advance

I was a member of a club last year and loved it. Sadly have had to leave since we moved house but I'm hoping to either start one or join one once we get settled.
Last one was started in the small town we lived in to meet new people and also encourage us to read more interesting books at least some of the time. 3 of us started it and then got friends and friends of friends to join. We ended up with 14 to start with which in hind sight is too many. But we only once had all 14 turn up. But would say 8 - 10 is about right.
We chose a list of books together and agreed to meet on certain night each month (eg last Thurs of each month.) If people couldn't make it that was just unfortunate, but we reckoned if we tried to coordinate diaries each month it would be impossible and just wouldn't happen. Then at each meeting we would nominate someone to buy the book for the next but one meeting (and they would bring it along at the next meeting.) They would just chose something from the preapproved list.
We spent a lot of time at some meetings talking about other stuff - it was always fun but a few of us were getting frustrated about the lack of book discussion. We didn't get around to addressing it before I left...
Books we read and enjoyed - Poison wood Bible (great and I think almost every book club reads it eventually!), Cane River, House of Sand and Fog (really hard to get into but we all enjoyed it and had a good discussion. We also read some "lighthearted" ones but wouldn't recommend it (Babyville and Diary of a Shopaholic
) Fun books but not worth reading for a book club - only generate about 10 mins of discussion.
So one recommendation would be agree the kind of books up front.
There are great websites with reading discussion guides - we didn't use those formally, but I think if I do it again, I might encourage a more formal start/introduction to the evening to get the book discussion going.
Go for it!

Interesting comments sjs - have you got details of the discussion websites?

Thanks in advance.

If you go to google and enter "Reading Group discussion guides" there are heaps to choose from. Amazon have some too which you can print out but I always have difficulty finding them on the site.
My favorite is Random House... the site address is
www.randomhouse.com/resources/rgg.html
I just took a look and they even have info about history of reading groups and advice to set them up.
www.randomhouse.com/resources/bookgroup/book_group_guide.html

BTW, can anyone tell me how to do links???

To do a link type
\link(the full address of the page\a description) but use {} curly brackets rather than round ones

So,
\link(www.randomhouse.com/resources/rgg.html\this) (with curly brackets rather than round ones)
becomes
this

To get more than one link on a post, you need to put a comma after the first link. I think anywhere after the first link works fine so just include one in the text somewhere.

Thank you sjs & SoupDragon (very impressed with the link advice!)

thanks for the further comments. i think i will have to put this on the back burner for the moment. we've got a lot on over the next few months and this has a lower priority than some of the other things we want to get our heads around. if there is an existing group advertising at the library say, i might check it out, but starting my own club in the area would i think be too much of a stretch for me atm. however, i wouldn't rule it out at some point in the future, and the comments here will be very helpful then. thanks again everyone

I'm thinking of starting one in the new year, Did you do it Bossykate? My friend and I have a few names but I want people who are similar to us but still have different tastes, if that makes sense! I can picture me doing the screeing
'whats your favourite book and who is your favourite author?'
'The Black Velvet Gown by Catherine Cookson and I love a Danielle Steele'
'ummm, sorry no, we've decided against it!'

I joined a small one last m,onth . There are about 7 or 8 women in it. We meet once a month at a restaurant, have a meal and a drink, chat generally but also about a book we will have all read in the previous month. I only knew 2 of the other members - 1 very well; the other was a friend of a friend. The others were really nice though.

The book is chosen by a different member each month. That personbrings in a choice of 3 book titles with information about the books. the group then choose between themselves which one to read.

Ours is done early evening too so that the 3 mums of us aren't back in too late; especially as it is mid week. We normally meet after work at about 6:30 for a couple of hours.

Last month's book (my first) I did not enjoy at all, and only read half of it. It was set in the genoside and was a bit too graphic for me. But then at least I will have my opinion on that won't I?

Next meet up is on Thursday at the new Italian restauant beneath my apartment - how convenient!

I joined an expat book lover club just a few days ago. They have 2 books per month - all discussed on line of course. The list of books has been made up through to June next year. I am really looking forward to participating. This book club was set up on Yahoo Groups - looks easy enough to do so long as someone is willing to be the moderator and keep it all going.

I'm trying hard to set up a book group in my area - Newbury.
But anywhere not to far in West Berkshire will do.
I belonged to a fab girly one in Birmingham where we talked about the books and caught up on each others lives in equal measures.
We read everything from The Time Travellers Wife to Cloud Atlas and always had a good laugh.

If anybody lives in my area, I'd love to join an existing group or set one up.

Xxxxxx

Valdeeves - have you joined the MN one on Goodreads yet? If not, see link
here.

Before we moved I used to go to a group in a local bookshop. Inevitably you get the odd domineering person who wants to talk all the time.

The guy who ran it decided we should go round the circle at the beginning and everyone had the chance to say what they thought of the book without anyone interrupting. After that it was an open discussion. I know it sounds a bit regimented but we needed that rule!

At the end, just out of interest, we each gave the book a score out of ten 1. for how good we thought it was 2. for readability/enjoyment. Not always the same thing ..

I looking to join one in the Newbury area?

I set one up. I did it through netmums local meet-a-mum and I got a group of 6 together. I put a message in the local but here too but didn't get much response.We meet every 6 weeks. Its been running a while now and we all really enjoy it and have become good friends.