Got an email from an old friend who's decided to start a book group in her new city. Do you have any suggestions, she asked?
Oh yes I do.
I am in a book group that I really, really like. I came into the group late -- maybe five or six years into the group's existence. I've been in the group for about 8 years (after the group had read 72 books together) and we've read about 70 more since then. I like my book group because it makes me read things that I would not read on my own, and because talking about what I've read with other smart readers helps me understand, remember, and enjoy the reading better. The women in my book group are very smart, and are serious readers, and are not afraid to disagree, which contributes to my enjoyment of our discussions. I think being smart and not afraid to disagree are the most important components. "Serious readers" is actually kind of hard to define, and perhaps not necessary.
We have rules that save us, even though we need to renegotiate these rules from time to time. Having them makes things more efficient. Establishing these things first will make it easier when, inevitably, people want different things from the group. Here's the thing. You're hopefully going to like and respect the people who join this group, and when people you like and respect start to stray by showing up regularly and confessing they haven't read the book and wanting to gab about their marriage or rant about politics, you'll need to fall back on the rules or your book group will stop being a book group. Someone who should know better will talk too much or go way off topic, and you need to have a person whose job it is to govern the discussion and keep it on track, because in the moment nobody will want to hurt anyone else's feelings.
First, some principles: 1) we are a book group that intends to read and discuss books as literature. We are not a therapy group or even primarily a group of friends. There are friendships within the book group,of course, and I feel warm fondness for everyone in the book group, but the friendships are separate and distinct from the reason we gather each month. We are also not a political group or a self-help group; the discussion of the books should be about the text, primarily, not about our own experiences or the state of the world today. When the book group meeting is over, it's okay to leave without lingering and talking about everything else in your life. 2) No competitive cooking. We have tea or wine or cookies or date bars or coffee, but that's not the point. Hostess duties rotate, but it's not meant to be a source of stress, and it's okay if you haven't cleaned your house or spent the day in the kitchen, as long as there are enough places to sit where we can talk for a couple of hours.
Second, some procedural rules: We meet on the 3rd Sunday of the month, from 3 to 5. We used to set the next month's meeting date each time, swapping conflicts and trying to make it work for everyone, but that gets tedious and personal, because invariably one person can't make it one weekend and someone different can't make it the next, and then when you vote it feels like you are choosing one person over the other. Take away that negotiation and you save time and nobody feels resentful. Also, people know to set aside that afternoon.
We have a geographic center. This is something we haven't done so well -- over the years, book group members have moved out of town, but stayed in the book group. That makes it harder for them to attend meetings and harder still for them to host meetings that everyone else can attend conveniently. Establishing some kind of geography ahead of time will avoid awkwardness when one book group member, who everyone loves dearly, moves 50 minutes away but still wants to host meetings. It's a drag to drive 50 minutes away to attend book group, but you won't want to kick anyone out once you've got the group going, so a rule would make this a little easier.
We rotate hostessing duties and book selection duties. Hostess leads the book discussion, in whatever way she chooses -- but generally there's a scheduling bit at the beginning, where we decide the next month's book and the hostess, talk about other books we've read or that people might find interesting, and then get down to the book discussion. The book selector's decision is absolute -- it is not a negotiation or a vote, unless the selector decides she wants to do that. Before we instituted that rule we wasted a lot of time proposing books and then trying to avoid hurt feelings while arriving at a consensus. Since our best discussions tend to spring from books about which we disagree, there's no reason for all of us to be excited about reading a particular book. BUT: someone in the group must have read a selection in order for us to read it. We've been burned reading selections that were favorably reviewed but which nobody had read. I suppose classics and Booker/Pulitzer winners are safe even if nobody has read them, but generally someone in our group has.
We have a secretary of sorts, who sends out a reminder email about the next meeting's time and place, and after a meeting about what the next month's book is. She also keeps track of the books we've read, which is pretty cool.
A few suggestions: rotate between old books and contemporary ones. Pick flawed books -- discussions where everyone shows up and gushes "I loved this book," are boring. Pick hard books, so you'll benefit from the conversation, and so you are motivated by the fact of the upcoming meeting to work a little harder than you would on your own. Read a couple of books by the same author, or read books by sisters, or pick a topic and look at it a couple of different ways. Read longer, darker books in winter. Remind people that it's okay to disagree, and model that kind of respectful disagreement in your own behavior, and you'll get much better discussion. Read plays and short stories and childrens' books, too, from time to time.
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