Canterbury Book Store recently completed a virtual book club - reading the book, Migrations, by Charlotte McConaghy. I went into the idea of a book club like I do so many new things - headlong, without knowing how to do it, and just being creative. It seems like it went pretty well. I think most participants got something positive out of it and enjoyed it. And, the others and I agreed we would be interested in doing it again. The book was chosen ahead of time, so we didn’t necessarily go through that part of the process.
After reading through several other people’s ideas of what makes a successful book club, I thought I would incorporate some of my own ideas and some of theirs into a brief list…in case any of you would like to start one and aren’t quite sure how to go about this.
One suggestion was to set an intention, but I think really we didn’t have an intention other than enjoying a good book and sharing our thoughts with each other about the characters, content, plot, writing style, etc and even diving into parts of those that were relatable to our own stories.
We didn’t necessarily limit the number of people who could attend - space was not a concern since we were on Zoom, but being able to allow all participants to share their thoughts can get challenging when you have a multitude on a virtual platform. I think in this instance, timing was the limiting factor anyway. The invitation to participate was posted on Facebook and extended to some friends who don’t do social media. From there, books had to be ordered, so we set a deadline for participation sign up.
Deciding on a regular meeting day and time was pretty important so we could plan ahead. I wanted to host it at a time that would be most convenient for everyone - we did our best to accommodate. Along with a regular meeting time and day, the idea of commitment to attend as many sessions as possible and stay up to date on the reading was important. This was “our” time, and I wanted it to be comfortable but somewhat structured. We decided in the first meeting to allow for eating dinner (or dessert) and enjoying whatever beverage we each wanted. I didn’t want to necessarily “lead” the group, so I asked people to think about what stood out to them or what questions they had or what lines held meaning for them as they read and to share that with us in the Zoom gathering. This led to some very great conversations!
A suggestion from one of the blogs was to send out email reminders, and our fairly regular communications between sessions seemed to cover that well enough. It was always nice to know in advance if anyone wasn’t able to make a particular meeting so we didn’t wait too long to start.
Lastly, the suggestion of a social break when transitioning between books sounded wonderful. With issues surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, social time has been limited for many and just getting together online to talk about the book was rather nice. We have talked about gathering at a local winery to chat and enjoy a tasting, so that might be our next adventure.
The most important suggestion I would have for anyone who is starting a book club is to be somewhat flexible in your ideas of what it should be. If you start out with a rigid idea and it doesn’t turn out the way you planned, you can end up pretty disappointed, but if you stay flexible, you can really enjoy time with others and get to know them as you share a good book.
Looking forward to the next time!
MK
