Thursday, 24 March 2011
What makes a great book club?
In the last few years I've come across a variety of different formats for a book club. And in developing the format for our club, which is reasonably established now I think, we considered several formats (see Beginnings blog). One idea was to follow a visible book club such as the First Tuesday Book Club or Oprah Winfrey. My partner has a book club that meets once a fortnight, generally picks the Penguin Popular classics and must read a certain number of pages prior to each meeting of the designated book. My mother has a club that's a bit different - a play reading group. But what makes the club successful? Is it the conversation, the shared common topic, the social gathering? To my mind it's the great wine, great cheese, great chocolate and great company! But I'd love to hear what other people do for their book club and what they like/dislike about it...
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Have a theme and stick to it. My wonderful club (just got back from a meeting now) has a 50 year rule. No book permitted that was not published AT LEAST 50 years ago. Each year we change the cutoff year - now it is 1961 - tonights book was The Razors Edge by S,Maughen (sp?) around 1940
ReplyDeleteI've got a collection of Sommerset Maughen, which is as entertaining a read as reading book 3 of harry potter in german with the use of an English/German phrase book as a translator.
ReplyDeleteWhat is required in essence to make a book club worth attending, is... a like minded group of people who use 'book club' as code for 'my only me time'/'my only social outing this month.
That and wine.