Hi all,
I have been thinking about starting a book club at my place of work and I was wondering if anyone had any experience in how they’re run and pros and cons?
I have a couple of different approaches in mind but I’m struggling to decide which would be better.
The first idea is to simply have a monthly meet up where we talk about, recommend, review, or just talk about anything related to a book were reading/read/want to read.
The other idea was to suggest a book to read then get together after about a month to and have a more focused talk about that specific book.
Or a mix of both (provide a loose suggestion on a book but still talk about whatever we want).
I’m leaning towards a blend because then everyone is free to read what they want but we still have a loose focus if people want to read the same book.
What are your experiences with book clubs. I’ve never personally been apart of one so I’m kinda winging it
by ConnerWasTaken1
4 Comments
I’m currently on the same boat as you. Idk how many people are in yours but I’ve got about 12 (small work place). We decided to meet somewhere outside of work like a cute bookstore or coffee shop to discuss the book.
In re to picking the book it’s just up to me to pick per my supervisor. But I’m going to suggest one person a month take turns picking a book
I think the main thing is to do what everybody would enjoy. Democracy is key, people are a lot more likely to participate and enjoy it if they get a say. This can range from where you meet and whether you drink to how you pick the books and what kinds of books you choose, or whether or not you pick books at all. If you have a couple people that you think would be really into it, discuss with them.
That said, I think a general reading discussion group sounds like it’s going to be harder to keep going month after month than one where people pick a specific book. Also, a lot of people like book clubs because it gets them to read books/read something they wouldn’t read otherwise, rather than just being a place where they discuss books with work colleagues rather than with friends.
I set a goal for myself a few months ago to each month read a classic book of the “I can’t believe I never read that” type, and when I told a couple of my friends and relatives they wanted to join in. So that’s the type of book we’re reading, we meet once a month, we have nibblies and there are cocktails. Because I read so fast, they’re also having me read the book first so that I can tell them if it’s truly something we shouldn’t bother with, in which case we will bail out to our emergency choice (chosen because we think it would make a good discussion and it’s really short!) But i’ve never heard of any other book group that does that last except us…
Ours has something of a hybrid – there’s a general book discussion channel in the company chat for whatever, but there’s also a book club that sets a book once a month (from a vote in the chat) and talks about that particular book.
I think the downside to a general free-for-all is that if someone shows up and is like “I just read this book” and no one else has anything to say or add to the conversation, it’s hard to get much from that.
I will caveat this by saying my group is small, only 5 so I could see this being harder with large groups. For our club we have a “theme” each month and then we each pick our own books to fit that theme and we take turns picking the theme itself. Sometimes the theme is very broad like “mystery” but sometimes we get more specific like “time travel”.
Once we get to bookclub we usually spend about 1/2 our time just chatting and catching up and then the rest of the time we go around and just share what we read and our overall thoughts.
I’ll say it’s great for those of us that have large TBR piles already and fun to pick through those each month to find a book for the theme! This upcoming month is Stephen King so I’m finally gonna tackle Misery!