How does your book group choose…

[ThatAgileCoralBird]

How does your book group choose which book to read?

I have recently joined a new book group and am struggling and hating the books chosen to read and discuss. The people are lovely, it’s dominated by retired and current teachers but they seem to have a hive mind; the same few people get their books chosen each time and the books are all very similar despite a different theme.

Each month the solitary male member of the group, chooses a theme,
each member can put forward a book and then he runs and administers a poll: the winner is the one who gets the most votes.

for the past six months I have gone in with an open mind but each book selected has been awful and a little bit of my brain has died.
I feel like it’s getting to be a waste of money and time.

Previous book groups I have been a member of really opened my mind to amazing books which I would never have picked up and the book group was run differently: each member in turn chose a book
or in the comic book group i used to go to, a theme was selected and each member came with their book, they championed its brilliance and we discussed.

how does your book group choose? I’m thinking of leaving if it doesn’t improve or suggesting a new format where everyone chooses in turn (I may be kicked out, I’m already on the naughty for being contrary)

We are attached via our local library , there are just 6 of us so we make a choice from the library individually twice a year via the book group collection and then the person who's choice it is collects the book and hands it out at the next meeting .
We find the meeting / discussion is more interesting if the book gets mixed thoughts about it .

@AutumnWreath Yes I think that’s a better way and I like it when there are differing opinions and thoughts.
think I may pluck up courage and suggest a trial new format.

We choose every 6 months. People who have one to recommend do so, someone collates the list and adds a summary of each one and we vote. If there are more than 6 the surplus get added to the next list.

We also discuss any book that someone may have read and would recommend/ or not .
A few people bring in books to pass to others .

Also add , we've been going over 10 years without many leaving .

I like my book group as the folk are nice and we have a good discussion. One or two people are a bit dominant and talk too much. I don't always like the book some have been dreadful. We can put forward suggestions. So I think it works quite well. Maybe look for a different book group and find one which suits you better.

The group I’m in has been running for over 20 years and we’ve had a variety of ways. These days it’s very low key, we just have a brief discussion, people will mention books they’ve heard about or want to read and one just emerges - I think it’s usually the second one we raise for some reason. I like it. There was a patch where we always looked at prize winner lists but we go a bit broader now. Tbh I think our way only works because there’s only 6 of us and we know each other so well.

If I’m honest I think if you don’t gel with the group and hate the books, just leave. Theres no guarantee that you would like the books they pick by any method - if you each pick one in turn you’re just as likely to hate most of them (would love to know what they pick / don’t worry, I realise it would be too outing!)

We bring along suggestions to the meeting and who ever hosted that month gets to choose. I might bring a suggestion but if it’s not chosen I’ll read it anyway. I’ve only got one dnf, it was some awful unfunny bollox of a book.

I think if they all like the book choices you may need to find another club.

One of mine the bookshop owner gives a selection to vote on. The other one we all pick up a book and we vote.

We take it in turns to choose the book, no votes, no discussion. I’ve loved some books I’d never have chosen to read myself so am happy to accept that there will be some I don’t enjoy.

It used to be that everyone brought along a suggestion.

Then we had a pushy and opinionated newbie join and she bull dozed everyone and we had her choices exclusively for about 9 months.

Then the woman who set it up decided we would have a rota of hosting and the person who hosted would choose the book for the next time.

It's been really interesting to see trends emerge. One of our wealthier members always chooses a new release in hardback which means it can get a bit spendy. Another always chooses a bio of a famous and accomplished woman (I like her choices). Another almost exclusively chooses a book that is political related (we had a bio of Putin and we had Misha Glenny's 'The fall of Yugoslavia'. Another likes historical romance which often provides a bit of light relief and i confess I often pick things up at random from the charity shop or a book I already own because cost of living is being felt hard in our household. So it can get a bit eclectic. I enjoy perhaps 50% of the books we read. i go mostly because I like the members and enjoy having a chat and a glass of wine with them. I have said before I'd prefer a lunch club and forget the books, but I'm alone on that.

Our book group has been going for over 40 years. We are mostly the original members but have lost and gained a few along the way.

We each choose a book about once a year. We know at least 2 months in advance what the choice is and about a year in advance which willl be our month to choose.

As members have moved to other parts of the country we now meet on zoom - not so sociable but we dont want to exclude people.

Sometimes people choose 2 or 3 and we come to a consensus. Sometimes the chooser only offers one.

The system must be working - we're still functioning despite our advancing years.

There are ten of us and we take it in turns to choose the book. Mainly we go for book club kits available at the local library because a couple of people don’t like it when we have to buy the book ourselves. The kits are generally a bit crappy- titles that the library think women want to read. If I read one more book about a woman being bold in the second word war or living her life against the rules of the time, my brain may implode.

It’s not the most cerebral of book clubs, which I am grateful for, but as the only British person in a club of Americans, it can be frustrating how everyone takes everything at face value and if it’s not explicit in the book, it didn’t happen. We once read a novel where a character takes their own life but because it wasn’t 100% stated as that, they all thought she had died in an accident and therefore the whole book was completely different to them.

All that said, I enjoy going and complaining about it when I get home and am very fond of the other members.

We take voluntary turns - the book sets are provided by the library (part of a big library grouping and the list is huge and regularly updated. Something I can get behind my council tax funding!)

When we started, the leader of the group picked the first couple, then two others who were, let’s say, philosophically and politically aligned to her. Found their choices a mixture of quite interesting, trite, and too similar, but the discussions were good.

Over the 3 years it has been running others have got the courage to volunteer to pick and I have enjoyed being exposed to books I would never have picked off the shelves, which I feel is the point of a reading group.

There was a bit of barely suppressed sneer from the leader when a woman who had nervously admitted she had hardly ever read fiction before picked from the light romance genre. We have open choice in our picks and the rest of the group took pleasure in discussing it as seriously as the more ‘worthy’ heavy reads.

8 of us, we all take it in turns - there is an order.
when it’s my turn I usually panic and look on Amazon for a bestseller 😂😂 sometimes I’ve had a recommendation and will use that.
whoever has chosen the book will then either host at their house or pick a restaurant that we go to.
It’s a lovely group; we’ve been going for over 15 years and other than 2 people leaving because they decided they weren’t readers we are still the same group.

So far, each person has suggested something and we all go along with it, or if most of us have read it, we find something else.

Exactly the same in our group. No voting, no dominant people, everyone gets heard. I love it.

Both run by bookshops, so the bookshop person chooses — at one he offers a choice of three at a meeting and those present vote on what they’ll read for next time. At the other, the bookshop manager just chooses.

Thank you all for your replies and insights.

its really interesting to see how book groups are run and what works.

all your groups sound lovely.

I think I’ll keep going for the moment and not rock the boat as some of the ladies are lovely and it’s good to get a wee chat about books in general. it’s only for an hour once a month.

I’ll just be a wee bit more canny on whether to devote my time and money to reading the chosen book. I’ll refigure my expectations.
I’ll have a look around for some other book groups in case it becomes intolerable though.

@PermanentTemporary and @Beekman yes bold women in ww2 and romantic melodramas, easy readers seem to be greatly favoured: whilst I’m fine with this in isolation,
the constant appetite for it is wearing.

@MantleStatue it is interesting that certain people suggest the same genre every time: we have someone obsessed with only reading Scottish authors, one only suggests nature writings, the spiritualist/religion one and one who is into gruesome graphic crime. Their books don’t tend to get picked. Usually I don’t bring a suggestion but may be we can start a quiet revolution.
perhaps I’m in for a run of life changing reads.

This is how we do it. Everyone takes a turn. It has got me reading different genres that I wouldn't usually read. Starting to lean too much towards mystery books though, so getting bored of that.

This is what we do and the person who chose the book hosts when it's being discussed. It works well for us.

Our book group is very local, and we all take a turn hosting. Whoever is hosting chooses a short list of about 3 or 4 books, and then we have a quick discussion and agree on which one. It's generally very amicable. But we don't take ourselves too seriously!

Where are you @ThatAgileCoralBird ? We need a new member and we're lovely 😍

This is an interesting thread as I’m a book club admin and we are looking at setting our next list. We try to set it quite far in advance as we have members who like to be able to look for Kindle deals and/or ask for the books for Christmas/birthday. Just giving a months notice wouldn’t work for them!

Previously, we put together a list of genres and asked members to recommend books for each category, then put them to the vote. We avoid having two similar genres next to each other. We have a rule about no “hard back only” books to keep the cost down.

This time we are struggling, we’ve had only 2 books suggested which are both “light” thrillers. Ive just been told what they don’t want /what genres they want. Am debating with the other admin just drawing up a list and saying we gave everyone else a month to come up with ideas, you didn’t so you are reading our choices with a vote only for the thriller group.

@Kayemm I'm in Scotland.

@FancyBiscuitsLevel that’s a good idea having a list well in advance: my local library has hardly any books now so I try to get them second hand and it can take a while for delivery. I’ll buy hardback new for authors I love though.
I have a monthly budget for books and my audible account free monthly token but you know how it is, the temptation for books I know I’ll probably enjoy more supersedes the book group choice.

the comic book group was good as it was not too serious, run by the librarian and he would just put in requests for books and encouraged us to do the same: then cuts to the local authority came and he moved on to another job. We had days out to comic conventions and film screenings. I haven’t picked up a comic in years now.

We all choose 3 books a year, do a poll and the most popular 12 books are chosen