First, I just want to put it out there that I love reading and books. There is something warm and fuzzy about sitting down with a book and escaping into a different world for a bit. My parents instilled the love of reading into my sister and me at a young age. I recently started a neighborhood book club. What began as a simple way to meet new people has morphed into a really nice connection with other women from my new neighborhood. I would like to provide you with some information about how to set up your own book club.

Step 1: Setting up a Book Club

When I first came up with the idea of a book club I was unsure how to go about getting one started. My oldest daughter has a book club, so I thought she would be a good person to ask a few questions on this topic. The first question was how to choose what to read.

My daughter suggested having two choices each month and then the members vote on which one to read. I liked this idea as I thought it might introduce some genres that I might not otherwise choose on my own.

First, I needed to find out if there was any interest in a book club. We have a neighborhood Facebook page so I posted a notice asking if there was interest. There were a ton of positive responses. I was thrilled! You could also ask your co-workers, peers at church, or another place where you frequently see some of the same people.

Step 2: Setting up the Foundation

The second part of setting up a book club is how you want it to function. Will it always be in the same place? Will it be on the same day of the week once a month? I sent out a poll asking everyone interested what day of the week and time would work. Once that information was gathered, I presented the most popular times to the participants. Bam! We chose a date and time.

Next, we decided that the first meeting would be at my house. It was suggested that after that we would rotate houses and adjust as needed for the comfort of all members. I felt this would give each person the chance to be a hostess. It takes away undue stress on one person to always be the host.

Step 3: Choosing the Book

In the first month, I suggested two books, gave descriptions of the books, and asked for participants to vote. The choices were Where the Crawdads Sing and The Bell Jar. Each participant was responsible for obtaining their own copy of the book.

Conclusion

Please read my next post to find out how that first meeting went and to get our review of the book.