For the love of a book club

 I am a book club girl, through and through. I’ve started many a book club in my time as team building exercises even (especially) at jobs that have nothing to do with libraries or books. There’s something about sharing a book with a group of people, chatting and dissecting, loving and hating, that is just like a warm hug, even when you have the obligational sour grape that always brings controversy to the meetings. 

For my book club experience, I’ll be chatting about a Book Lover’s club at my library. I took over this book club in August from a librarian that retired. It was a bit of a challenge to win the ladies over, but they’re a wonderful and dedicated group! Each month, we have about eight to 12 ladies attend the book club, all around retirement age. Most have been attending for many years, and they usually all go to brunch after our 10 o’clock meetings.  

Our February book was Lucky Us by Amy Bloom, a coming-of-age historical fiction set in 1940s America. Lucky Us follows two sisters, one from their fathers’ years-long affair who gets dropped on the doorstep one day, as they traipse across the country finding their purpose. Iris, the older sister, ambitiously pursues fame, as the younger Eva follows along in her shadow.  

This book was surprisingly controversial for my group. Before each meeting I compile a list of discussion questions from around the Internet, as well as a short bio of the author. I try to sprinkle in some fun facts if I can find any to make it different from what’s in the bio included in the book. I start out the meetings by reading the author bio and then going around the circle having everyone give a star-rating of the book out of five, and a brief reasoning. In our nine-person group, we had ratings all over the place from one star to five stars. It made for a lively discussion!  

For the discussion, I mainly act as the moderator. I highlight the questions I especially want to get to in case we start running out of time, but usually I’ll just go down the list. If the conversation starts to lull, I’ll pop in with some follow-up questions or build off of what other people have been saying. This discussion stayed pretty active as the group sparred on what they loved and hated in the book, and we even had some people expand on personal connections to the story from their own upbringing. The group that came this month was very good about letting everyone have their turn to speak and being respectful of each other’s views. We occasionally have a group member come that likes to ramble and monopolize the conversation. She’s been busy and unable to attend the last few months, but when she does and starts to ramble, myself or another group member interjects to give others the opportunity to speak and move the conversation along. 

At the end of the meeting, I had copies of the next month’s book available, The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell. I chose this book because we had been reading a lot of literary, relationship-focused fiction lately and we wanted something thrilling and fast paced. Another plus, there were plenty of large print copies I could get ordered in! Many of the ladies in my club prefer, or downright need, large print, so this is something I always take into consideration. The ladies turned in the old book and grabbed a copy of the new (I have them checked out on my card so they just grab and go). After a little more chit chat and some catching up, they went on their way looking forward to next month’s meeting!