How to Run a Book Club

I just finished Intermezzo for my book club meeting this Wednesday. Phew! Cutting it a little close! When I started, I was worried about finishing in time since the paragraph formatting is quite dense. The perspective is close third person for the two brothers and without quotations, it was slightly difficult to follow internal vs spoken statements. In the end though, I really liked it. My tiny quibble is that a few of the characters seem a little too easily self-actualized by the end. Like, if only it was so easy to identify and transcend blindspots and self-sabotaging behavior in real life. The world would be a better place!

Anyway, I have been a fan of book clubs for awhile. My first three book clubs were ones that I was simply a member. My first club was one that I joined by tagging along with my sister when we lived together for a year in San Diego. The second was in Yokosuka, Japan where it was mostly wives of doctors and a few female doctors who made the cut! We read literary fiction and it was a really good club. A lot of book talk and a great group of women. My third book club was in Palo Alto, hosted by a Google project manager who didn’t like me but quasi-pretended to, but the group overall was great. This was also a literary fiction-focused group.

I found the Palo Alto group through MeetUp so when I moved to Norfolk, VA, I decided that I wanted to start a book club on MeetUp which I called, Read Between the Wines. I think I stole this from the Palo Alto group, but I can’t quite remember. This group is still going, which is really exciting even though at this point, I’ve lost touch with the ladies I knew best in the group. When I moved back to San Diego, I went to a few MeetUp book clubs that were hit or miss. One group was co-ed, which I didn’t like. I’m a fan of all-women bookclubs. My professional life is relatively male-dominated and for my book club time, I enjoy ladies only. I feel that guys tend to dominate and mansplain in the book club setting. Is this fair to say? Maybe not, but it’s what I think.

Another group was cool, but I had a hard time making their meetings. Ultimately, I ended up in a three person reading group with two fellow physicians at the hospital I worked at. Although this sounds ridiculously small, it worked out super well because we were consistent, read the book, and, most importantly, all able to talk. I don’t have a problem speaking up in groups (at all) but my two friends are much more introverted and a smaller group was preferred by them. When I left, I think they radically expanded the group to four women total. It must have been my outsized presence they were trying to fill, lol.

When I first moved back to the Bay Area, I joined a group that was based on an influencer’s blog/book interests. The group composition was pretty random and the books were lighter. Over time, it sort of disbanded, although I met one woman through it who’s now a friend and in my current club. Now, I’m in a book club that is mostly, but not exclusively, composed of women who live in my apartment building. We also focus on literary fiction. I would say people aren’t as good about finishing the book compared to prior clubs, but most attendees have and the ones who haven’t are usually pretty far along.

In terms of how to run a book club, there are a few ways to guide discussions. First, you can literally print out questions from online reader guides, which can be a helpful way to stimulate conversation. I would say my current group does this sometimes. Although come to think of it, it’s usually one woman in particular who comes prepared. I’m planning on having some questions from Intermezzo because there are some amazing things to talk about, but the book is quite dense so breaking it down a bit will be helpful.

Another option is to have freeform conversation. We tend to do this the most, which sometimes leads to shorter than expected conversations about the month’s book but then leads to other book conversations. This club is probably the best read one that I’ve belonged to, so it’s a free-wheeling, interesting conversation. The last few months, there’s been a lot of ACOTAR/Sarah Maas universe/Iron Wing conversations. So yes, fairies and smut have had a strong showing in addition to higher brow fare.

The last way to have a discussion is actually my favorite. I used this technique in my Norfolk group. Each attendee had two cards and would write a book question/discussion prompt on one and a personal question on the other. This guaranteed that there would be plenty of discussion about the book, but also allowed group members to get to know each other better. The personal questions were fairly innocuous and usually centered on travel and vacations. It wasn’t as if we were playing a game of “I Never” with deeply personally, possibly embarrassing/incriminating questions! We would place the prompt cards in a bowl and then pass it around the circle. Whoever drew the card would first answer the question and then anyone else could jump in. This was nice because it made sure that even the quietest group members would get a chance to speak.