A few weeks ago, in the comment section of my book review post, Kathleen requested I write a post on my book club. I feel like I talk about my book club a lot on this blog, but I don’t go into many specifics. So, today, if you’ll indulge me, let’s talk about book clubs.
on joining
My start to this book club was a little rocky. And mostly due to my own silly insecurities. Originally, I planned to join in January 2011. After searching on Meetup.com, I found a young women’s book club and it sounded perfect for me. So, I joined and even read the book pick for the month, but the day of the meeting, I panicked and bowed out. I just… got scared. Worried about what people would think of me. Going to a social event on my own is terrifying for me and I couldn’t get past my own insecurities at that time.
Nearly two years later, I summoned the courage to try again. It was the exact same book club, but it had a new leader, Amber, who is the nicest and most welcoming person I’ve ever met. I ended up joining around the time Amber was hosting a new members’ get-together. It would just be a few new people who wanted to join the club and some long-time book club members, getting together at a restaurant downtown for drinks and tapas. It was honestly the best situation for me as I got to “join” in a low-key setting and get to know some of the members before I attended my first meeting.
My first actual book club meeting was in October of 2012 and it went so wonderfully! We met at a restaurant, and it was a small group, which was perfect for me. And from then on, I’ve been a book club regular!
our meetings
Like most book clubs, we meet once a month and we pick a date based on everyone’s schedules. Sometimes it’s a midweek dinner, other times it’s a Friday night or Sunday morning brunch.
If we choose a date during the week, usually we’ll meet at a restaurant for a few hours because schedules are busy and we all need to get home in a timely manner.
If we choose a Friday night, we’ll usually try to pair it with a fun outing. We’ll meet at a restaurant to eat a good meal and talk about the book, and then drive over to another location for some fun. Some of the things we’ve done: laser tag, bowling, shuffleboard, and playing games at a brewery downtown.
During the summer months, we’ll often schedule “brunch book club by the pool” where everyone comes to my pool on Sunday morning for brunch potluck, mimosas, and pool time! It’s so much fun and usually my favorite type of book club we have!
So anyway, we definitely don’t stick to any one type of book club outing. We like to keep things interesting and it honestly just feels like a “girls’ night out” than the type of book club most people expect. And I love that! 🙂
discussing books
Another way we might not be like a typical book club is with our discussions. We don’t have in-depth discussions about the books we choose. I know some people like to discuss themes and literary plot devices, but we prefer to just chat about how we felt while reading the book. Sometimes, if a book we read comes with a discussion guide, we’ll answer a few questions from that. Generally, though, we just like to discuss different plot points and our reactions to them. We don’t tend to pick super literary books, anyway, but more “feel good” books, which are more fun to discuss thoughts and feelings than literary themes.
choosing books
We have a few parameters for choosing our monthly read:
- It can’t be one someone has already read. We like to have the reading experience together!
- Ideally, it will be a book two or more of us have marked as “to-read” on Goodreads.
- Ideally, it will have a rating of 3.5 stars or higher on Goodreads.
- It has to have multiple copies available at the library. (Nearly all of us are library users, so we run into problems if the book has a long waiting period or is completely unavailable. This also means we don’t read popular books, so we haven’t read The Girl on the Train or All the Light We Cannot See as a group.)
Typically, Amber comes to our meeting with a few book ideas, and sometimes, some of us will also have some options. We’ll read aloud the book synopsis from Goodreads and then decide collectively if we think the book will be a good fit. It usually doesn’t take us very long to pick a book, and we tend to choose cute YA novels, engaging thrillers, or women’s lit.
new members
We don’t regularly take new members. We no longer have our group listed on Meetup.com (Amber actually took it down the month after I joined – glad I joined when I did!) Our group now exists in a private Facebook group.
Nearly all of us are introverts, so we like keeping our meetings small. Having 10-12 members at a meeting starts to feel overwhelming. But every now and then, we’ll do a “bring a friend to book club” meeting if we feel like we need to add new faces and new personalities to the group. That’s actually how my BFF Bri started attending!
special events
We like to do something special at least once a year to celebrate the book club’s anniversary. In 2013, five of us went on a two-day weekend cruise, and in 2014, we took the Ghost Tour of St. Petersburg. This year, we’re thinking about spending a weekend in Orlando for the Food & Wine Festival!
Other than that, we’ll get together for dinner every now and then. We had a 90s gift exchange for Christmas last year. A few of us got together to carve pumpkins last October. I’ll meet up with Amber for lunch since we work near one another. A book club friend and I started meeting up for writing dates. We all met up for a painting date for a friend’s birthday. Things like that!
We have so much fun together. They are more than just my “book club girls,” but some of my closest friends and favorite people. Growing up, I didn’t have friends who really understood me, or even really accepted me for who I was. These girls are my people. They get me. I never knew that I could find people who accepted me as I was, and let me be my neurotic, weird, crazy self. I love these girls with my whole heart and I’m so glad I took a chance on joining this group. It’s been one of the best decisions of my life.
Do you belong to a book club? How does it differ from mine?
This was interesting to read! I just started a book club in November with another friend so we are still in the early stages of our club. We formed it by each inviting a couple of friends. I like that it’s a group of people that weren’t necessarily friends before as we tend to stay on track and discuss the book versus talking about our lives (not that there is anything wrong with talking about our lives – we do that too but the book discussion is usually the main chunk of our get together). We meet once a month at a restaurant and try to set our meetings 2-3 months in advance so people can plan around them. So far this year we have each taken turns picking out a book. We are almost to the point where everyone has picked a book so I think we will revisit that approach and see if it should change…. Some rules I’d like to implement going forward is that the book can’t be more than 300 pages (we have some really busy members so getting through one book is often a challenge for them) and the book should be available at the library. But all in all i am really happy with our club!
Loved learning more about your book club! The only book club that I’m involved with currently is the Postal Book Club. It works for me though I would love to find a local book club; most of my local friends don’t read as much as I do, nor do their schedules allow for something like that at present (read: new babies!). Maybe that will change, someday…
I loved reading this post. Book posts generally make me feel good, so this was lovely on a Monday.
I wish I had a book club, but here they are not a very popular thing. My friend and I started a “book club”, though it’s not really, since it’s only the two of us. We started with The Chronicles of Narnia, since neither of us read it. It’s just the two of us, and we still have a hard time finding a day that fits both of us or feels like a good day for Narnia. I guess we can decide based on how we feel, since no other members are involved, haha.
Again, great post and thanks for sharing! 🙂
Love this! I have been a member of a book club for maybe nine years now. It has seen many members come and go, and there is only one other person who started it with me originally. Currently there are only three of us attending each month, so I’d love to expand it. I have invited friends in the past, but none have stuck!
We meet once a month on the fourth Sunday of the month at 2:30 at the same restaurant. It’s half social, half book chat and we don’t usually go too in-depth either. We all bring suggestions and then just decide on whatever we feel like. If there is one thing I’d change about our book club (besides adding new members) it would be to have a better way to choose books. We’ve done it differently before, but keep coming back to this way.
Thanks for sharing!!
Love this post! I recently joined a Book Club as well but we only meet about every 6ish weeks and mostly discuss the book. Some of us are kind of friends outside of book club (I run with a couple of the girls occasionally) and a few of the ladies work together as well. One of the members recently moved into a complex with a pool though so we are going to do a pool book club similar to the one you described in August for our next book!
I love that you found such an awesome group of friends to connect with. I have lots of great girlfriends but they are all from different areas of my life and sometimes I’ve felt a little bummed I don’t have that big group of friends where everyone knows one another and is friends with one another.
I can empathise with your joining story. I’m an introvert too and it can be difficult to do something new like this. My book club is part of a scifi group and I was lucky to join the scifi group when they had smaller gatherings but I took a break and when I last went back there were about 30 people I had never met it was a bit overwhelming! The book club on the other hand is a much smaller group but I don’t always go because I’m not always interested in the book choice. I like how your club decides on what books to read and also that you’re not restricted to one genre.
Your book club sounds amazing! Can y’all move to Sacramento so I can join? 😉
I tried starting a book club a couple years ago but it wasn’t very successful. Maybe I’ll try again now that I have my nights and weekends free and use some ideas from this post to help it grow. 🙂
This is so amazing and makes me want to join a book club! It’s so cool that you’ve found such amazing friendships through this club!
Your book club sounds awesome! I’m so glad you found it!
I started mine up about two years ago. Our first meeting ended up being around 12 or so and we’ve now dwindled down to four, which I’m pretty happy about. I get way too overwhelmed in huge groups and didn’t enjoy our first meeting. I think we could use a couple more members, but we have a good group going, so we’ll see! We don’t usually talk about our books too much anymore and just use it as an excuse to get together and eat once a month… totally fine! 😉
You guys do a lot of really fun things! Good for you! I hope to hear more about your book club sometime!