I have friends who love to read more than me, and others who don’t like reading at all. For years I’ve been in the middle trying to keep up with the titles my tandem reading friends suggest while encouraging ones who only read text books to read something outside of their day-to-day. When one of my friends mentioned she wanted to start a book club, I jumped on how to make it happen because 1) I love reading, 2) I love a good reason to plan a get together, and 3) My quality time love language eats activities like this up.
In order to make this possible consistently, we made sure we had a few things squared away in our initial planning, and also made sure we have a few components checked off for every meeting. This has been working for us since we’ve started, and each meeting has gotten better each time.
Initial Book Club Planning
Know Your Book Club Audience
Knowing we have a group of ladies ranging from book lovers to not reading books in years, we were mindful of what types of titles to introduce to the group. We wanted something that would be enjoyable but not overwhelming, so nothing too long or challenging that would discourage those who are just finding their interest in reading. We selected a variety of genres from mystery, self-help, romance and comedy that would spark interest and introduce something that everyone typically wouldn’t read. This made for interesting conversation and good discussions on topics that we have different perspectives on.
Set a Realistic Meeting Cadence
Everyone has a busy life, so we were very realistic on when we could actually meet and put those times in a shared calendar. It was helpful for us to set up a few meetings months out with what book we’d be discussing so everyone could get them and start reading on their own time. It’s helpful that I love these meetings, so I’m always sharing what book is next and checking in on how everyone is doing while they’re reading, so having an unofficial accountability partner also keeps us honest and pushes us to have the book read by the next meeting date.
For Every Book Club Meeting
Don’t Discuss Hungry
It’s hard to engage when your stomach is yelling at you and your head is fogged from hunger, so we always make sure we have something to eat with some tasty to wash it down (I’m usually assign with making the drinks). We like themes, so we’ve been making dishes that tie into the book in some way. For example, we read a book that had mangos as a important part of the story, so we made mango margaritas to go along with our meal and ate mango sorbet for dessert. We ate Jollof rice while discussing a book based in Nigeria and ate apple pie when discussing a murder mystery novel where the main character bribed another with a slice for answers. No matter what it is, there is always food involved before we start discussing the book.
Designate a Leader for the Conversation
To keep our meetings structured, we have a designated discussion leader who keeps the conversation going. She comes with questions that we have to answer and then opens the floor to anyone who has questions of their own or wants to dive into parts of the book a bit deeper. The conversations are always great this way because we have someone responsible for keeping us on track. It’s very easy to derail from the conversation when something good gets brought up, but having at least one person to get us back on track helps us keep wanting to have these meetings.
Build in an Activity
We also like to incorporate an activity to make for a more engaging discussion. We’ve played Clue for a mystery book and did Paint by Numbers for another meeting. They’re not always themed, but we like to do something to make the discussions interactive. Watch a recap of how we hosted our book club for the month of June.
Capture the Moments
This is just a personal preference for me, but I love to capture the moments so I can look back and reflect later. I cherish times with my friends and it’s always nice to look back on our friendship from time to time, especially for activities like this when some are doing something new for the first time. I’m excited to see where this book club takes us.