Late in 2019, some girlfriends and I started a small book club to supplement our meetups that usually revolved around wine. Looking for a little more thought stimulating (and less gossiping) conversation, we turned to literature. A female fight club was briefly considered but ultimately vetoed due to sustainability issues and the group’s aversion to being punched in the face. The 1st rule of book club is don’t talk about book club. Just kidding.
Rules of Book Club
- The host rotates to a different member each month and that person chooses any three books that interest them, no genre is off-limits.
- The group votes on the book they most want to read based on the three options.
- The host prepares discussion questions for the meet-up. Open-ended questions are better for discussion rather than yes-no questions.
Some helpful tips I’ve learned from running this club are:
- Give members 1 month to read the book. When our group meets, we determine who is hosting the meeting after the next. Typically by then we already have the next month’s host and the book picked out so we determine who will host after that.
- Coordinate via group chats. Utilize a group chat app (like GroupMe) to coordinate meetings and votes. When a host has 3 book options they like, they will create a poll in GroupMe and the rest of the participants will vote and the winner is the one we read.
- Pick crowd-pleasing options. People are more likely to come if they like the genre, so save the obscure post-modern, Harry Potter erotica fan-fiction interests to your spare time so you don’t freak everyone out.
- Wine and snacks are strongly recommended. Wine helps further discussion so have extra on hand.
- Lean into the theme of the book for the meeting! When I hosted, the book we read was The Little Book of Hygge and I told my guests to come wearing their favorite comfy clothes, favorite snacks and I lit a fire in my fireplace to mimic the tone of the book. We lived our version of hygge, and it was the most successful meet-up so far.
Hope this inspires you to start your own book club!