The formula seems pretty simple.
Some friends and acquaintances all acquire a book with the same title, read the book, gather at an appointed time and place, and discuss the book. Throw in some refreshments, and there you have it: a book club.
If that vision appeals, but you’re not quite sure how to bring it to life, here are some tips from three people who’ve started more than half a dozen book clubs.
The First Step
When Jonathan Nathaniel, his wife, and his children moved to West Virginia, he missed the book club he’d left behind. “We were getting to know some people here, and so I asked one other guy from church if he’d be willing to start one with me,“ he told The Epoch Times. ”Then I sent an email to a men’s group, and a few people came the first time, and other people came over the first six months to a year, and it sifted out until we were left with a core group of interested people who enjoyed the conversation.”Anna Barren took a slightly different route. When she moved back to Front Royal from Washington, D.C., where she’d founded a club involving co-workers, she and her two roommates at the time, both readers, “became the hub for the meetings” as other female friends joined them. At one point, membership and the meetings faded a bit, but she’s now revived the club. She told The Epoch Times, “It’s the same core group with some additions.”
Well-Read Mom is the vehicle Kari Lemmon of Warren County, Virginia, has used to form groups of female readers, not all of them moms, in Virginia and California. Founded in 2012 when Marcie Stokman brought together 20 interested women in her living room, Well-Read Mom today sponsors more than 1,000 groups of readers, with more than 10,000 participants, all reading the same book every month. “When I moved here, there was only one group with about 25 women,” Lemmon said. “It was too many members, and so this other woman who had just moved to town and I talked about how we wanted to start another group.”
They followed through on that conversation. Today at least six other Well-Read Mom groups are also meeting in the county.
Logistics
Setting limits on the size of the group is important. Lemmon, Nathaniel, and Barren all agree that the ideal group runs between six and 11 people.
Of the men in his group, Nathaniel holds that “six to eight is kind of a sweet spot where everybody’s able to talk.” Barren agreed. “I'd say 11 is the max. Even that’s a little big, in my opinion.”
All three of them usually host these meetings in their own homes on selected evenings, with each meeting—including time for fellowship—lasting about two hours.
Refreshments tend to be liquid, mostly because the book clubs meet in the evenings when everyone’s already eaten supper. “The food never really caught on,” Nathaniel said, “because of the timing. We sometimes try to theme the drinks to the book we’re reading.” Of her group, Barren said, “Most everyone brings wine, bourbon, beer, or coffee.”
Schedules are another consideration. In Lemmon’s Well-Read Mom group, the reading list is set a year in advance, with summer reserved for individual group choices. “I send a reminder in the beginning, all the books and dates. This year we’re meeting on the last Monday of the month. But there’s Christmas and Thanksgiving, so then these days get bumped up.”
Barren’s group meets every three weeks rather than once a month, while Nathaniel and his club, like Lemmon, get together once a month.
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So Many Books
The books read by Lemmon’s group are selected by Well-Read Mom, which also supplies additional materials, including questions for discussion. This approach links together thousands of female readers. “I have a daughter in Phoenix who’s in Well-Read Mom,” Lemmon said. “So, I can talk to her about the book.”The groups organized by Barren and Nathaniel follow a more casual process of choosing their books. When first starting up, Nathaniel intended to follow John Senior’s “The Thousand Good Books: An Incomplete List,” but found that “some of the other guys had books that were important to them, that they wanted to read as a group and discuss. Being flexible—that’s a key thing,“ he said. ”They’re books I wouldn’t have read, and the discussions ended up being really wonderful.”
Jonathan’s club adds one interesting twist to its book selections. “Because of the realities of our group—we’re all working dads—it has to be available in audio format. Some of the guys couldn’t get through the book if they didn’t have the ability to listen.”
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Options and Benefits
Book clubs can spring from all sorts of wants and needs. Some parents, for instance, organize an age-appropriate reading group for their adolescents and teens, drawing ideas for good books from guides like “Honey for a Teen’s Heart” or the John Senior list. Other nationwide clubs like Well-Read Mom can be found online. If you prefer reading to discussion and are looking for company, there’s even Silent Book Club, where members gather in small groups, read from books of their own choosing, and then enjoy some social time together.Whatever route you take, this reading and conversation can fan out into other parts of life. “Depending on the book,” said Lemmon, “some of the moms will let their kids read it or listen to it. So, it’s bringing about a culture of reading and discussion in the family.”
Barren found that the women in her group were sharing personal wisdom inspired by the book. “We were reading Anna Karenina,” she said, noting that they took several months to finish that thick classic. “Some of the women in the group have been married for a decade, others just got married last year, and some are single. It was cool to get different insights into marriage and interesting to have people empathize with certain characters. You hear different perspectives, and it makes the book feel more a part of you.”
Nathaniel has found that his group of men talks “about something that transcends modern cultural issues and politics. We didn’t have any other aims than just to get men together and read great literature.”
And here’s one more incentive: If you join a book club or start one, you’re helping remedy two national negatives—the declining interest in reading books and the “loneliness epidemic.” You’ll beef up your prowess as a reader, and you’ll deepen and create friendships.
Good companions, good books, and good talk? There’s a triad of pleasure waiting for you.
