Starting Your Own Book Club
The following tips are courtesy of the Washington Center
for the Book at the
Seattle Public Library and are reprinted with permission.
Visit their site for more information and ideas for your book
club: http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=collection_discussiongroup.
Getting Started
You can find book discussion groups almost everywhere these days—in bookstores, community centers, private homes, online, and at libraries. While for some, reading is a solitary activity, many find their appreciation and pleasure of a book broadened and deepened through discussion.
Before (or at) your first meeting, discuss:
- When, where and how often your book club will meet
- How long each meeting will last
- Will you serve refreshments
- What is the role of the leader (or if you will have one)
- Who develops the discussion questions
- What types of books will you read and discuss
Choosing Good Books for Discussion
Good books for discussion have multidimensional characters
who are forced to make difficult choices, often under difficult
situations. They present the author's view of an important
truth and sometimes send a message to the reader.
Books that are heavily plot driven, where the author spells out everything for the reader, leave little to discuss. Most mysteries, Westerns, romances and science fiction/fantasy fall in this category.
The following types of books can promote lively discussion:
Books that have ambiguous endings. For example, there is
no consensus about what actually happened in Tim O'Brien's
In
the Lake of the Woods, Sara Maitland's Ancestral Truths
or James Buchan's The Persian Bride.
Books you read in pairs. These can be discussed at one meeting or read and discussed in successive months. Examples: A Dangerous Friend by Ward Just and The Quiet American by Graham Greene, The Hours by Michael Cunningham and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild.
Books that raise many, many issues. Examples: A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines, The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks, House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III, and Girls by Frederick Busch.
Not every member will like every book the group chooses. Each member brings his or her own history, memories, and background to the reading of a book. All of these differences influence the reader's experience of a book.
Reading a Book for Discussion
Reading for a book discussion—whether you are the leader or a participant—differs from reading purely for pleasure. Asking questions,
reading carefully, imagining yourself in the story, analyzing
style and structure and searching for personal meaning in
a work of literature all enhance the book's value and the
discussion potential for your group.
Here are things to do
and think about as you read:
Make notes and mark pages as
you go. This may slow your reading, but saves time searching
for important passages later.
Ask tough questions of yourself
and the book. These can promote in-depth conversations with
your group and make the book more meaningful.
Analyze themes.
Consider the premise with which the author started.
Get to
know characters. Consider their faults and motives and what
it would be like to interact with them.
Notice the book's
structure. Are chapters prefaced by quotes? How many narrators
tell the story? Is the book written in flashbacks? Does the
order the author chose make sense to you?
Compare to other
books and authors. Themes often run through an author's works.
The Role of a Discussion Leader
Leading a book discussion requires preparation. These ideas
can help leaders promote a good discussion:
- Have 10-15 open-ended questions that can't be answered "yes"
or "no." Or ask each group member to come with one discussion
question.
- Be ready to let the discussion flow naturally.
- Push members beyond "I just didn't like it" statements.
Have them describe what it was about the book that made it
unappealing. Some of the best discussions are on books that
inspire strong reactions, positive and negative.
- Keep a balance
in the discussion between members' personal revelations and
a response to the book itself. If groups become sidetracked
in reminiscences, it's no longer a book discussion.
Learning More About an Author
Discussion leaders may want to bring additional background
about the author and book to a meeting. Some reference titles
for researching authors are: Current Biography, Contemporary
Authors, Something About the Author, The Dictionary of Literary
Biography
You can find book reviews in Book Review Digest and Book
Review Index. Look for these resources in your branch. The
Internet is another good resource. editor's note: WutheringBites.com
is also an excellent resource for book reviews and book club
recommendations!
Coming Up With Good Discussion Questions
If you need help developing questions, these suggestions
may help:
- How does the title relate to the book?
- How believable are the characters?
- Which character do you identify with?
- What makes the protagonist sympathetic, or unsympathetic?
- Why do
certain characters act the way they act? Does she have an
ax to grind, a political ideology, religious belief, or psychological
disorder?
- What does the character mean when he says "..."?
- How does the author use certain words and phrases differently
than we would normally use them?
- Does the author make up new
words and, if so, why?
- Are the plot and subplots believable
and interesting?
- What loose ends, if any, did the author leave?
- How is the book structured? Flashbacks? Multiple points of
view? Why do you think the author chose to write the book
this way? How does the arrangement of the book help or detract
from the ideas it contains?
- What types of symbolism do you
find in this novel?What do these objects really represent?
How do characters react to and with these symbolic objects?
- What themes—motherhood, self-discovery, wilderness—recur
throughout the book?
- How is the setting of the book important
to the theme?
Drawing Conclusions
What is the great strength—or most noticeable weakness—
of the book? What did the author attempt to do in the book?
Was he or she successful?
Thinking Outside the Book
- What is the author's worldview?
- Does this book fit into or fight against a literary genre?
- Does this book typify a regional (southern, western) novel?
- Does the book address broader social issues?
- Does the author take a stance on, for example, anarchy
versus capitalism?
- How is a particular culture or subculture portrayed?
- Where could the story go after the book ends?
- What is the future of these characters' lives?
- What would our lives be like if we lived in this story?
- How does this book compare to other books you've read?
- Would it make a good movie? Is there a film adaptation
of this book? What is brought out or played down in the
film version?
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