myself and some freinds are starting a book group any tips?

[minxofmancunia]

Just want to know what works, what doesn't, how did you choose your books etc.

Don't want it to be too serious!

friends

1. Do not attempt to reach consensus on what you read. You will find yourselves reading the blandest books imaginable with no variety.

1. Assume copious amounts of wine will be drunk.

not for me, am pg at mo but all the friends involved are complete winos so I expect nothing less of them!

have an 'agree to disagree' policy so you don;t spend all evening trying to tell xomeone that a book they hated was actually really good.

Based on my group, I'd suggest

1. Take it in turns to choose the book - until we did this, we used to spend half of each meeting arguing about debating what book to read next.

1. Don't pick 700-page tomes. If you do, few people will actually finish the book, which limits the discussion.

1. Be considerate towards other group members in your choices - even if it is your turn, don't pick the very difficult (Proust) or the very fluffy (insert name here) unless you've got a fairly clear understanding that they would welcome it.

I agree with the others - each person has a turn to choose a book. Don't try to be democratic, it wastes time! Also you might want to agree not to choose new books that are only available in hardback? We started off with me organising dates etc but we have simplified now - whoever has chosen the book hosts the evening and emails everyone to remind re the date.

We used to take turns at choosing books, but by the time it came to choose, we'd drunk so much wine that people either couldn't think of a book to choose, or got too bossy and beligerent.

Now, at the start of the year, we all choose 2 books that we want to read throughout the year. We then draw them out a hat - 2 books a month for 12 months. You can read one or both books. Some organised person then emails a list of the books for the next 12 months.

We also have it on the last Friday of each month and that goes in the diaries and everyone knows.

Good luck.

Sorry - should add that ours seems really organised, but it's not at all serious. We all find it works best that way.

The only rule is that we talk about the books for a hour or so!

I like the hat idea!

We each put forward three suggestions, on a bit of paper with a short description of each book. Then we all discussed each person's suggestions and decided what to read. That was successful.

Next time we chose several genres of book - classic, poetry, a play, a chicklit, an (auto)biography, a science fantasy and a book not originally written in English. Each of us drew a 'genre' out of a hat, then compiled a shortlist of 3 suggestions as above. This was not so successful as researching the suggestions was quite hardwork.

Finally, we all suggested a book we had read and loved, and everyone else read it.

The books which provoked most debate and interest were 'Veronika decides to Die', 'The Time Traveller's Wife' and 'Fortune's Rocks'.

We met at each other's houses, we all knew each other well and there was absolutely no pressure at all to provide lavish food. Some did - their choice, others (like me!) laid out snacks from LIDL.

Lots of wine was drunk and at Christmas we did a Secret Santa, with books as gifts, of course!

I absolutely loved my book group and missed it once we had disbanded (amicably, by the way)

Have a few books and dates in the diary so that if it all becomes too much - and it will, because we are all so busy! - we can choose to skip a month and go straight to read the next one!
We keep hosting really simple - just a drink, crisps.
We set up a group with friends of friends so we didn't all know each other - that was good as it cut down on the potential for 'schools talk' etc as we didn't know each other that well, and kept us on subject!
We really enjoy ours and are now in fourth year.
We find 8 or 9 in a discussion is a good size as everyone is in on the same conversation.

How did you all start one? I want to do this but don't think I just want to do it with friends (some don't drink wine ) - would like the friends of friends route as well. So, how to strt one/join one?

Tinker -
I approached the mother of one of my daughter's class friends and asked her was she interested. Then we approached a couple more mothers whom we knew, but not well. They leapt at the idea. And in turn suggested two people they knew from outside school. We ended up with about 10, including various neighbours or work mates of friends. What most of us have in common is that we are mothers, in our 30s or 40s and live reasonably locally. I think it is useful to have something in common - we have age, sex, motherhood. I think we have probably been lucky with the mix of people. Our group expanded to about ten, but it took a few meetings to get to that stage.

Hi Tinker
I've just started a book group, we're all in the process of reading the first book. There are 8 of us and we put everyones suggestions for books into a hat. As we're mostly all busy mums we decided to meet every 2 months rather than every month. Having said that it seems most people have already read the first book well ahead of the 2 months but this may be a novelty. The first book out of the hat was my choice so we're holding the next meeting chez moi.
A really great website for ideas for discussion points is Random House. They have reading notes for loads of books and tips on how to start a book group.
I'm really excited about my book group, best of luck with yours!

Don't just read "Book Club Books" - i.e. shallow Bestsellers meant to jerk tears. It's much better when each person chooses a book they want to read, like the new book of their favourite author, even if nobody's heard of it.

I agree Cote, equally its a good thing to be open-minded. A couple of the choices from people seem a bit,er, "fluffy" shall we say but I may well end up enjoying them.
Also,I used to belong to another book group where I chose one of my all time favourite books to discuss (Angela Carter's Wise Children) and was most upset when many members didn't like it! Nowt as queer as folk!

Thank you both