So, having already covered that topic, today I am going rogue. I have completely stepped out of my introverted box and have reached out to my neighborhood and volunteered to start a book club. I do have several people interested (yay!) and would love some advice. For those of you who have started bookclubs or even been a part of a successful book club I would love to hear what works. I would like to thank Emma at Words and Peace for encouraging me to do this and for the great advice she has already given me!!!!
Also, my Little Free Library is scheduled to be finished this week (yay!!!) and then I will finally be able to open it. So, for those who have started little free libraries I would love to hear how you did the opening.
My post for new to me authors is here.
Bookish questions I need your help with:
What books have you read that would appeal to a variety of different readers? (I am looking for relatively little/no language, closed door romance if you suggest romance, fiction and non-fiction)
If you are a part of a book club, how does yours work? How often do they meet? Who picks the books? Best advice?
If you own a little free library, did you do a grand opening? Did you have giveaways? Did you do snacks? How did you advertise?? Any advice/suggestions welcome.
What did you do for this week? What is a book you wish you had read last year? To see what other topics our bookish friends are doing this week click on the image below.
My book club just read ANXIOUS PEOPLE by Fredrik Backman, which led to a good discussion. It's got a bit of language, but no F-bombs and nothing graphic. The one I'm going to suggest to my book club is THE LINES BETWEEN US by Amy Lynn Green. I can't remember if you've read it already, but it's clean (Christian fiction) and it's about conscientious objectors during World War II who work as firefighters on the home front. It's a good read, with lots of interesting discussion topics. Good luck with your book club and your LFL!
ReplyDeleteHappy TTT!
I have Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove on my TBR list...I have read The Lines Between Us but not sure if it will work or not. I don't want them to think I am trying to start a Christian fiction book club.
DeleteYay, great to know you already have some people interested!
ReplyDeleteI know that if I had chosen the regular format of book club, I would only have had a few women interested. But our potluck format pleased many people, men and women, so it's very rich content, and lasting - 10 years now, with 11 meetings per year
Emma, I really like the way you do yours. I am already having trouble setting up a time for us to even meet to talk about format. One person wants it on Sundays (which I can't do) another wants nights, another is a nurse and her schedule rotates...
DeleteCongratulations on starting your own book club! That is awesome, Cindy! I'm afraid I can't be much help when it comes to offering advice on book clubs, having never run one. And my lifespan in one has only ever been short lived. I do wish you the best with it though and hope it's a big success!
ReplyDeleteI am a little worried about it. I wish I had a bit more interest so I could be a bit more flexible on meeting times etc. We'll see.
DeleteI can answer your second question about book clubs. I've been part of a book club for 10.5 years now. We meet once a month. We meet on the third Wednesday of each month. I like having a set day because everyone always knows what day book club is. Because of the pandemic, we've met via Zoom a couple of times, which hasn't been bad. Every year, we each suggest books to read and then we vote on them. The 12 books with the most votes are the books we read. I hope that helps.
ReplyDeleteThank you, it does :)
DeleteMy last book club did a mix of books from literary to classics to nonfiction which I thought was fun. And we only met once a month, except we skipped December because that month was just too busy for everyone. In ours, whoever was hosting picked the book, but I didn't love that. I felt it put too much pressure on the host. I would have preferred if we all offered up suggestions and then voted together on what we wanted to read. Good luck with your book club! I hope it's a lot of fun for you. :D
ReplyDeleteThanks Lark, me too. I am hoping to get a little more interest too.
DeleteI've hosted a book club for nearly 18 years now. (The same book club Jenni Elyse mentioned above!) It started in May 2004 with just 2 people. We struggled the first few months have been going strong since. There are obviously ups and downs, but most of our bookclubbers feel like they truly need it in their lives. The biggest thing I think that has made this one so long lasting is that it's VERY consistent. I don't think we've missed any month except for last November! What? LOL! We did skip summers back in the beginning but then everyone decided we needed summers too. The meeting place as also always been at my house. So people always know when and where. There is no wondering. Same place, same time, same day. Every month. As Jenni mentioned, we vote on the books each year and everyone seems to really love this process. People suggest books, I make a list and a google form and whatever wins, we read. If you are interested in a list of books we've read, there's a link on my blog under the books heading. Good luck getting yours going! So much fun!!
ReplyDeleteI do like these suggestions. I am wanting to host it at my house too. I like the idea of suggestions and voting.
DeleteI'm a member of Suey's book club. It is the best!
DeleteAgreed. It’s the best. I look forward to it every month, even if I haven’t had a chance to read the book.
DeleteI think it is cool that you all are connected through the book club!!!
DeleteWe did a grand opening for our Little Free Libraries (I have six!) and we had snacks and flyers and, of course, free books!
ReplyDeleteThanks Deb. That is what I am aiming/hoping for!
DeleteI have been in two bookclubs. One at my church where we all made suggestions and the leader selected on from this list. The bookclub at my library was run by the librarians and they made the selections. I recently read "The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland" by Jim DeFede. It is non-fiction, but reads like fiction. There is a lot to discuss. Good Luck Cindy.
ReplyDeleteThanks Carla. I have looked at the ones my library does but I haven't been very interested in their book selections.
DeleteI recently moved and miss my old book club very much, so I think it's great you're starting one yourself! I may go that route, too, since the library book club I joined here is still on hiatus due to Covid. Will keep an eye on the answers you get here.
ReplyDeleteJoAnn, I told my husband I needed it. I hope it will be successful and fun.
DeleteI've never been part of a book club. I'm not sure if I would enjoy it. And now with my work schedule (I work 3rd shift/overnights) which limits a lot osocial activities. Best of luck to you with yours!
ReplyDeletePam @ Read! Bake! Create!
https://readbakecreate.com/10-authors-i-discovered-in-2021/
Thanks Pam.
DeleteThat's so cool that you're starting a book club AND have a Little Free Library opening.
ReplyDeleteSuzanne, the Little Free Library has been in progress since December...I am very impatient, I feel like it is never going to open, LOL!
DeleteI don't have any good answers to your questions, Cindy. But, I did read my first Emma St. Claire book, The Buy-In over the weekend, on your recommendation, and I loved it! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYay Wendy, so glad to hear it!!
DeleteHow exciting, on both fronts!
ReplyDeleteI started a real-life book club with a friend I met on GoodReads. She's way more outgoing than I am so it turned into a group of her friends. This was well before covid. We met at restaurants and had kind of a ladies' night, which was nice. The club is defunct now, just because we were too haphazard.
My advice would be to set up a pretty firm schedule (Every second Tuesday of the month or whatever) and find a way to designate what you're reading well ahead of time. We tried to accommodate everyone's schedule, which is impossible. We never had any idea what we were reading more than a month ahead of time, which meant that we spent a good 15+ minutes of every meeting digging through book lists and suggesting book titles to the group. That was on top of the 5+ minutes of looking at our calendars to choose our next meeting date. Oh, and the time spent choosing the next restaurant. We just weren't organized enough. Others complained about book clubs they had been in that were too regimented but we weren't regimented enough.
It was fun to tie books in to other things. For example, we read The Grapes of Wrath and went to see the community theater production of the play. We read Cutting for Stone and ate at an Ethiopian restaurant. That kind of thing. I still have a shelf for our selections on GoodReads.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/48404-jg-introverted-reader?ref=nav_mybooks&shelf=book_club
I don't know anything about Little Free Libraries except that I would love to have one! Good luck!
Oh, if you need to find more members, MeetUp seems like a good site. I've looked at different groups on there but haven't ever gotten the nerve to go. My husband's cousin, a psychologist, says he sends lonely clients to the site all the time to find friends with similar interests.
DeleteThanks Jen, I appreciate all the advice!! I am very much an introvert too, so it's hard, but I am really organized, so I have that going for me, LOL!
DeleteAg no man - I've just typed this whole message and then my phone bombed out.
ReplyDeleteMy Book Club is 5 years old and it works more like a book exchange. Every member pays R100pm and the host gets to buy books of her choice and after a year you get to take your books home. Works very well and we read a large variety of books.
We have book club on Tuesday and I'm so excited for it!
Wow, that's a different take, thanks for sharing!
DeleteI have never been in a book club as I'm quite a slow reader and with a toddler I couldn't guarantee to get stuff read. I am however going to try and do a buddy read with my sister over the summer so we shall see how that goes!
ReplyDeleteWe don't have free little libraries here in the UK. I love seeing pictures of them on social media though!
Emily
https://budgettalesblog.wordpress.com/
Emily, I did it one time when I lived in Nairobi and I didn't enjoy it...here's hoping for a better experience!
DeleteBrilliant questions, Cindy. I am in an online book club at the moment and we always choose our next reads for about three months by everyone suggesting books and all of us voting. We try to only read an English book every other month. That was not the fact with my international club, we did the selection simlarly and tried to get some suggestions from our members from non-English speaking countries so we always had a few foreign ones but didn't necessarily go by how often we read from which language.
ReplyDeleteLFL, ours don't look as nicely but we have several bookshelves in the town, indoors (museum, hospital) and outdoors. And the main thing is that you can bring your unloved books there and have them loved by others and find some new ones yourself, no matter how pretty the place.
As to books that appeal to a variety of people, I think it really depends. I have just done some ThrowbackThursday posts and would definitely suggest Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and These is my Words from that list.
My TTT this week.
Awesome, thanks Marianne, I will check out your suggestions!
DeleteI've never been in a book club, but it sounds amazing! Good luck and happy reading!
ReplyDeleteThanks Andie, it is a very slow process!
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