How To Start a Book Club

I work part-time at a book store in a book-reading town in the mountains of Appalachia. I often get asked about the nuts and bolts of forming a book club by ladies who would like to start their own group, so I have compiled some helpful tips below.

Keep It Small

In our book club we have tried to keep it deliberately small at about twelve members. There are no initiation rights, there is no secret handshake. To be a member of our book club you need to get recommended by a member, and then show up regularly at meetings. We have never kicked a lady out of our club for non-attendance, rather these ladies tend to resign after a year or so of not attending book club. No big whoop.

Keep It Local

By only inviting ladies from the local neighborhood it means that the meetings are all within walking distance, which is an aspect of membership that our group values, especially after a couple of glasses of wine.

Keep It Equitable

The implied major responsibility of membership is that each member plays host to a book club meeting and leads the discussion at least once a year. Some of our members have claimed a month as their own each year since it makes it easier to plan. This way if you decide to keep your book club membership at a dozen you have a member for each month.

Keep It Simple

If hosting a book club meeting and leading the discussion is too much of a burden on a member, she has the power of delegating her discussion-leading responsibilities to another willing member. Food for such an event tends to be sweet bites of brownies, fresh fruit, cookies, or bruschetta type appetizers. Some ladies of our group prepare foods that may pick up on a theme of the book we are reading. So for example, we read Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen that had a circus theme. So our gracious hostess had circus peanuts, (Deadly, delicious and disgusting. Eat only one for the love of god and your thighs.), and popcorn. Her idea was simple and satisfying and helped to hit home the theme of our book choice for the month.

Keep It Friendly

We sometimes have book topics that generate a lot of interesting conversations and sometimes we disagree on topics, but we are never unfriendly. It is always important for a group of polite, middle-aged ladies to remain polite. We may differ on politics or religion, but we also live in the same neighborhood, our kids play together and we need to get along.

Keep It Positive

Each month a different member has the privilege of selecting a book that we all read. We do not always agree as a group on a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on any particular book, but we try to accentuate the positive in our conversations and to never say that most hurtful of phrases, “Why on earth did you pick this book?” (Which really translates into, I don’t understand it and I hated it.) Again, keep it friendly because after all it is just one book in a sea of books that you will read and enjoy (or not) in a lifetime.

The above are the book club rules of one small-town group of ladies who have met regularly for the last six years or so on the third Thursday of every month. Make up your own rules but be flexible enough to at least attempt to accommodate all of your members.

Need help finding the perfect book to read? I recommend this site for book lovers everywhere. And remember, reading feeds your mind.