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How to find a book club
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Greetings, Book Page. Phil’s still around, I’m just blogging here for a couple of days about book clubs.
I’m having a blast writing the What We’re Reading column about book clubs. It runs every Sunday, and hopefully you’ve seen it. As an avid reader and book club member, I love getting book ideas and hearing how book clubs got started and how they operate.
Often, I hear from book lovers looking for a club to join. I can’t give out e-mail addresses of clubs I’ve featured, but I do have this advice based on how other book clubs got started:
Call your local library branch and ask if they have any book clubs.
Visit your local bookstores and ask if they can help you connect with a club.
Send an e-mail to everyone you know asking if they know of any book clubs.
I am almost sure these three steps, especially #3, will yield several clubs from which you may choose. But if by chance you still haven’t found the best fit … start your own club!
Network with people you know and encourage them to send e-mails to people they know. Let them know exactly what type of club you are looking to form, what kind of books you want to read, whether you will meet on a weeknight, a weekday or on the weekend, how often you want to meet and whether you want the club to be women-only, men-only or co-ed etc.
Take the ball and run with it. Yes, you will be on the hook for organizing the club until it gets its sea legs. But as many of the club members I’ve featured will tell you, it’s worth it.
This is how my club got started last year. My friend Kathleen sent out an e-mail to various friends she thought might be interested. And now, many books, laughs and good times later, here we are. We still don’t have an official name, but I always refer to our club as “Six Degrees of Kathleen,” because everyone in the club is somehow connected to her, including a friend I recruited at a playgroup. “Oh, Kathleen Kelly,” she said. “I know her.” (They both have children adopted from China.)
So there’s my advice for finding a book club. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you how to get your club featured in What We’re Reading.
Does anyone have any more advice on finding or starting a book club? Things to avoid? Success stories?
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Book Clubs
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By Atlanta Pearl Girl
December 20, 2007 2:02 PM | Link to this
I joined a book club intown….then started one in my neighborhood as well! Everyone has time to read a book or two… I have about 3 going at any given time! Feed your brain!
Cheers!
By ugh
December 20, 2007 4:43 PM | Link to this
This is not a topic!
Are we back to Get Schooled boredom?
By margaret
December 20, 2007 9:54 PM | Link to this
My coffee club started one as a means to get people in the door… it’s having problems right now, but it’s been a good experience for me. They just sent out emails to their regulars and about seven took the bait. Scheduling and the problem of the light readers vs the serious readers became our biggest problem.
By Dandy Jones
December 22, 2007 10:26 AM | Link to this
NADA by Carmen Laforet. What a book. So make it about books and you will have a book club. Make it about booze and it will be about drunks. A social club, it will be just social Just be honest about why you are starting it and you will not be dissapointed.
By Lyn LeJeune
December 31, 2007 9:37 AM | Link to this
I manage The Beatitudes Network-Rebuilding the Public Libraries of New Orleans. The book, The Beatitudes, Book I in The New Orleans Triolgy funds the organization and all royalties from the sale of the book goes directly to The New Orleans Library Foundation. I offer a free book, reading, program to any book club. Contact me, Lyn LeJeune, at lynlejeune@cox.net for informaion. merci mille fois - www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com for excerpts and The Chronicles of New Orleans.
By Lyn LeJeune
December 31, 2007 9:38 AM | Link to this
I manage The Beatitudes Network-Rebuilding the Public Libraries of New Orleans. The book, The Beatitudes, Book I in The New Orleans Triolgy funds the organization and all royalties from the sale of the book goes directly to The New Orleans Library Foundation. I offer a free book, reading, program to any book club. Contact me, Lyn LeJeune, at lynlejeune@cox.net for informaion. merci mille fois - www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com for excerpts and The Chronicles of New Orleans.