Book clubs have been around for a long time. Call it a "book discussion group" or a "reading group" but it's all the same - a chance for you to get together with a group of people to read and discuss [hopefully] great books.
Most people think that when you start a book club you just pick a book, set a meeting, and go with it. Yes, this is the basic structure of a reading group. However, there is quite a bit more thought required. Here are the main things you need to think about:
Choosing a book - very hard for some people, very easy for others. Your aim is find a book that will produce a good discussion as well as something you want to read.
Setting up book club guidelines - there are absolutely rules that you must agree upon and follow as a group if you want to be successful as a book group and not just a regular gossip session.
Book Club Menu/Food decisions - do you want to do appetizers? Heavy desert? Full dinner? Follow a book theme? The possibilities are endless.
Type of club - you can choose to build your club around a particular theme (i.e., yoga, cookbooks, nonfiction, etc)
The key to a successful book club is structure and finding a group of people that are in agreement about the way the reading group should be run. I'll give you an example using my "real time" book club as the feature.
The No-Whining Allowed Club is our name. We meet once a month, on the first Tuesday of the month. At the meeting we discuss the previous month's book pick. Our basic structure is: arrive at 6pm, catch-up and gossip over appetizers, eat dinner and discuss more serious things (not book related yet!), move to an area where we can all sit in a circle and discuss the book and have desert. Our book discussions range from 30 minutes to well over an hour depending on how good of a book we've read. The person who chose the book always starts by rating the book 1-5. Then we all go around and do the same thing. After that the floor is open for discussion. At the end of the meeting the next month's book, who will also be the host, is revealed.
