I’ve been in one since June 1998, and have really enjoyed it. We meet on the last Friday of each month for lunch downtown; most of our members are involved in the legal profession in one capacity or another (a judge, two magistrates, several city and county prosecutors, a county bar staffer, and others).
The person who picks the book also leads our discussion, and gets to pick the restaurant. No one picks a second book until everyone has gotten to pick at least one book, and we always know at least two months ahead what the upcoming books are, so you can pace yourself. Picking a book you haven’t already read is encouraged, so that you don’t feel like you’re defending a book you love. A candid review of the book, and not a personal attack on the person who selected it, is the rule, however. Everyone is asked to give his or her opinion of the book, concluding with what letter grade (A+ through F) he or she would give it. At one meeting a year, everyone reads whatever he or she likes and gives a mini-book report to the other members.
We used to have rules that every book had to be available in paperback, and that every other book had to be under 300 pages, but we dropped those requirements. The books we’ve read have run the gamut from “chick lit” to mysteries to thrillers to science fiction to history to biography to nonfiction. I’ve read a lot of pretty good books I never would’ve taken a look at otherwise, and there’ve been surprisingly few clunkers.
If there’s interest, I’ll post a list of the books we’ve read so far.
Tell me about your book club!
William V.: I think your OP is great and I’m sure you’ll have lots of replies, but I hope you don’t mind if I respectfully share an alternative to f2f bookclubs that works for me. I know that book groups are wonderful ways to discuss, make friends, and get new recommendations, but for me online bookgroups were the solution.
I’m an avid reader, but I read every word which slows me down. Because I’m moody about what I feel like reading, I often don’t want the obligation to read a group book choice that I don’t enjoy, especially because means a bigger time chunk than it does for most. Because my book-buying habits far outpace my reading, I have literally hundreds if not thousands of unread (TBR) books I’m dying to dig into. Finding the next book is never a problem with me.
The online book groups worked for me because there might be dozens of people in the discussion (and many more lurking), so the presence or absence of a few participants isn’t critical. Also, there are online bookgroups for every possible genre and type of reading, and each one has its own personality. I used to belong to several at the same time, participate frequently enough in all to make online friends and learn a ton about current lit.
While I still read contemporary literary fiction, lately I most often read recent science fiction or fantasy, and in my town there are no face-to-face groups that read in these genres. Now I discuss books at an intelligent and respectful sf&f forum (where I heard about SDMB, actually), and I get to pick and choose what I want to read.
I just recently started looking around town for one to join, because they sound like a great way to find new books I’d never read otherwise; meet new people that share some of the same interests as me; and understand a book in different ways through discussion.
But alas, I’ve not had much luck. Perhaps I’ll see about an online club, though that sort of removes the bonus of meeting new people.
I was in a Joyce group in Chicago that lasted for 10 years. I’ve missed that experience but I’ve never found another group that I wanted to join: every group I found was just doing whatever the latest “buzz” book was, or Oprah’s pick, or whatever. So I founded my own group, a couple months ago. We read Nobel Prize authors, and meet every two weeks. So far we’ve read:
The Dwarf
Par Lagerkvist
Independent People
Halldor Laxness
Snow Country
Yasunari Kawabata
Hunger
Knut Hamsun
and on deck we have The Lost Steps, Alejo Carpentier.
We’ve been modifying our rules for the future. We’re not going to limit ourselves to Nobel books, but the personality the group is such that all of our choices will most likely be “Nobel worthy.” Flannery O’Conner and Cervantes are on the horizon, for example. The setup is that every other book is chosen by an individual member, on a rotating basis. And every OTHER book is chosen by consensus: we each nominate two titles, and then we vote.
It’s been very interesting, and pretty rewarding so far. I chose three of the first four books, to get things started, and this group of people who were recently strangers has given me new insights into each of the books that I’d ready before. I’m looking forward to the group continuing to mature.