How to start a book club that lasts
Many book clubs fade within a few months, and it is rarely the books. The few decisions that keep one going, settled before anyone reads a page.
Starting a book club is easy. Keeping one going is not. The first meeting is full of goodwill, the second is a little smaller, and by the third someone has cancelled, two people haven’t finished the book, and the conversation has drifted to somebody’s kitchen extension. Most book clubs that fade don’t fade because of bad books. They fade because of logistics, mismatched expectations and a slow loss of momentum.
Almost all of that can be settled at the start, before anyone has read a page.
Decide what kind of club it is
Book clubs come in two broad kinds, and most of their arguments come from mixing the two without saying so. In one, the book is the point: people read closely and want to talk about it for most of the evening. In the other, the book is the reason to see each other: people come for the company and the conversation and are happy to give the book half an hour.
Both are good. Say which one you are starting in the very first message, so that people who want the other kind can decline without anybody being hurt.
Get the size right
Six to ten people is a comfortable size. With fewer than five, a couple of cancellations leave two of you and a bottle of wine; with more than about twelve, the conversation splits into separate tables and the quieter people stop speaking altogether. Invite a few more than you want, because not everyone who says yes will come every month.
Mix people who don’t all know each other. A group of close friends is lovely but tends to talk about everything except the book, while a couple of new faces keeps everyone gently on their best behaviour. Making friends as an adult depends mostly on seeing the same people again and again, and a book club is one of the few arrangements that makes that happen without anyone having to try.
Fix the rhythm and the place
Pick a regular slot and keep it: the first Tuesday of every month, say. A fixed date removes the most tiresome part of any group, which is finding a date. Monthly suits most clubs; meet more often and busy people fall behind, less often and the group loses its thread.
Then decide where. Taking turns to host shares the effort, and a booked corner of a quiet café or bar takes the pressure off anyone whose home is small. If you meet at home, agree early that the host provides chairs, something to drink and something to nibble, and that nobody cooks a three-course dinner. Competitive hosting has ended more book clubs than any disagreement about a novel.
Choosing the books
This is where clubs quarrel, so settle the method before you choose the first title. Three that work:
- Take turns. Each member chooses in rotation and the rest agree to read it. Simple, fair, and good for widening everyone’s reading.
- Shortlist and vote. The month’s host offers three options and the group picks one.
- Plan ahead. Choose three months at a time, so people can borrow, reserve or buy the books in good time.
A few practical rules help whichever method you use. Check the book is available in paperback or from the library, not only as a new hardback. Keep length in mind: a 700-page novel in a month full of holidays is asking for trouble. And mix it up, fiction and non-fiction, new books and old ones, the prize-winner and the one nobody has heard of.
When people haven’t finished
Someone always hasn’t. Decide from the start that they come anyway; a club where people stay away because they didn’t finish the book loses members faster than in any other way.
Agree how you will handle endings. Many clubs talk about the first half of the book first and give a warning before the ending, so anyone who still means to finish can step away and top up the drinks. And let every kind of reading count. An audiobook counts, and so does a book someone abandoned halfway with a strong opinion about why. Some books are not meant to be finished, and the reasons someone gave up are often the best conversation of the night.
Running the evening
You don’t need a formal leader, but somebody should open the conversation, and the person who chose the book is the obvious choice. A handful of open questions will carry most evenings:
- What did you expect this book to be, and was it?
- Which character would you least like to sit next to at dinner?
- Where did you stop on the first night, and why?
- Is there a line or a scene you are still thinking about?
- Would you give it to a friend, and which one?
Save the discussion questions printed at the back of some novels for when the conversation runs dry; used from the start, they make an evening feel like homework. Give the book its fair share of the time before the talk moves on to everything else, which it will, and should.
Keep it going
Every few months, ask the group what is working and what isn’t. Some clubs add a summer outing, an end-of-year meeting where everyone swaps a favourite book, or a year of reading in translation. Let people step back gracefully when life gets busy, and invite someone new to take their chair. A club that lasts isn’t one that never changes; it is one that keeps meeting.
The hardest meeting to arrange is the first. After that it is just a Tuesday, a few chairs, a plate of biscuits and a book you would never have picked up on your own.
