Adult Readers Advisory: Book Club Experience

I have been a member of a book club for approximately nine months. The relatively informal group is made up of 14 people, although the attendance is generally eight to ten people at each meeting. Attendance is by invitation only, although members are open to having new members attend. The majority of the group is people living in or near Ada, Ohio, although there are several members, myself included, connected with another member who do not live in Ada but still participate in the group. Most members of the group are librarians or library workers at public or academic libraries.
The book club meets at a member’s home, and includes refreshments. Usually, everybody attending brings a snack or beverage to share, although at Halloween and Christmas the book club held potluck dinners. The Halloween party also included the members dressing up as literary characters. Meetings are approximately once a month, but are scheduled for days, usually Friday or Saturday night, that are convenient for members, so there is no set schedule.

Leadership, such as it is, is passed around the group. Each member gets a turn to choose a book. The members are all friends, but reading tastes do not always overlap, so genres and styles are often very different between months. This was the design when the book club was set up; members wanted to read and discuss books that are outside of their normal reading tastes in order to expand their horizons. There has been quite a variety, including YA books (“Eleanor & Park” by Rainbow Rowell and “The 5th Wave” by Rick Yancey), science fiction (“Neuromancer” by William Gibson), historical fiction (“Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon), romance (“Unveiled” by Courtney Milan), and nonfiction (“Mortality” by Christopher Hitchens).

Leadership does not necessarily mean that the leader is in charge of the discussion or acting as moderator, although generally the person who chose the book will get the conversation started by asking what people thought of the book. The discussion then moves on to analysis of the books and peoples’ feelings about the book and its contents. Sometimes the person who chose the book will ask additional questions about certain key elements or plot points of the book.

Discussion is generally well-balanced between members, probably in part because the members are friends, and in part because many of the members have attended or facilitated other book clubs. Nobody dominates the conversation, and members are generally respectful of others’ opinions, although members have been known to gently tease each other about their preference for certain books or genres. Part of this may have to do with the fact that the majority of members are librarians and library workers who, while often holding strong opinions about books, are trained to be non-judgmental about others’ reading tastes in their professional lives.

Discussion does vary, though, depending on the number of members who have read the book and whether people had strong reactions to the book. For example, the discussion of “Outlander” was very short. The length of the book was a hindrance to many of the members, and most members of the book club thought the book was neither great nor terrible.

In contrast, discussion of “The 5th Wave” was more spirited. Nearly everybody read the book because it was shorter and a fairly easy read, and there was a lot of discussion about the nature of the relationship that the main characters had. It also led to a discussion about the way relationships are portrayed in teen fiction, and where the book series might be headed, as the book was discussed around the time that the second book was released.

Because the book club does not have a moderator, the book club does have a very informal structure, and there are months when discussion is forgotten in favor of chatting, snacking, and drinking. However, as time has gone on, discussion has gotten deeper and better.

I have really enjoyed being a part of this book club. It has given me a chance to read some books that were on my “to-read list,” and some books I may never have read without book club. I enjoy hearing and discussing different interpretations of books, and getting a chance to expand my reading horizons. I also enjoy the comradery with the librarians in the group as I grow in my career and work on my master’s degree. Most of them have been in the profession for longer than I have, and so they are a great source of support. Since the book club meets so far from my house, I can’t make it every month, but it is a very fun group to be involved with and I make an effort to get to the book club as often as I can.