Our "Real Life" Book Clubs

Many of us are members of book clubs/discussion groups IRL (in real life - as opposed to online), and there has been some talk of having a thread devoted to sharing information about them - successful club reads, less successful ones, what's on tap for your club in the coming months, what are you hoping to nominate/have selected, etc.

So here we are!

No real "rules" for this, just a place to share... So have at it :)

I'm a member of two book groups - one very new and one fairly well-established.

The former is "Women with Spines" (a name I stole from @RebaRelishesReading) and consists of five people, including me. The other four are all women I know from various things but who don't all know each other (or at least didn't until the group formed). We've been meeting since July. We meet every other month, either at a local restaurant or one of our homes. Each member gets to nominate two books for the month they are "hosting," and the rest of us vote.

So far, we have read:

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
If I Survive You
Rules for Visiting

They all made for a good discussion, especially the last one.

Up next for us is All This Could Be Yours, which I am really looking forward to, as I love Jami Attenberg.

I'll write up my other group later.

Well- I'm in one from my school! Its just got the name Bookclub lol- it used to be Cozy club or whatever

but right now we are reading House In The Cerulean Sea

I recently joined a real life book club for the first time ever, and it's a new one. We just discussed our third book, The Grapes of Wrath, and will be reading All the King's Men this month. (Previous reads were Oliver Twist and Rebecca.) The "theme" is classic novels, which we discuss with the question in mind "Does this book deserve to be considered a classic, or a 'great' book?". I'm enjoying the discussions very much, although only two other people besides me are participating -- there is a third woman who always comes, but has almost nothing to say. She does seem attentive, and told us at the first meeting that she has always had a problem reading fiction, and wanted to get over that. She's 84 years old---I love that she comes, and always seems to have read the book, even if she doesn't venture any observations.

>4 laytonwoman3rd: Your bookclub is certainly reading great books. I hope you like All The King's Men, one of my favorites. I wonder if the members of my own two bookclubs would like to read it?

I've been a member of the same book group since 2000. It was originally the local NCT (National Childbirth Trust) book group and so everyone in it had young children. It started in June 2000, and I joined in the July (Jacob was about 5 months old then). It's long moved on from its beginnings and several of us have retired now. Mr SandDune joined about 2003 and has been the sole male member ever since. We meet 10 times a year (January is Christmas meal and August is holidays) and we each take it in turns to choose a book - the only restrictions are it must be in print and available in paperback.

I'm a member of 2 book clubs, both based at the local senior center. The first one is the Senior Book Club. I joined this one after I retired, and this will be my fourth year. We meet monthly, except December, but we have a luncheon in early January, where we do not have a book discussion, just conversation and a "white elephant" book exchange. In the fall, members send suggestions of books to read to our organizer, who compiles them for voting, and then we vote on what to read next year. The books have to be available digitally from the local library, and have a Goodreads rating of 4.00 or above. There were a couple of books I wanted to recommend last year but they weren't available digitally, so that ruled them out.

This is our schedule for 2026:
January - A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
February - The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict
March - How to Read A Book by Monica Wood
April - The Women by Kristin Hannah
May - Isola - Allegra Goodman
June - Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
July - The Briar Club by Kate Quinn
August - Go as a River by Shelley Read
September - The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn
October - Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller
November - The Measure by Nikki Erlick

I need to go deal with dinner, but I'll be back to report on my second book club.

>5 ffortsa: All the King's Men is one of my top five contenders for Great American Novel. I first read it in college when one of my American Literature professors raved about it, and have lost track of how many times I've read it since then. I own 3 copies, including the 2002 reprint that purports to be "restored" to the way Warren wanted it. I'm ambivalent about that---one day I may read that version, but not this time. Our club leader IS going to read that edition (he's also very familiar with the novel), so I'm looking forward to hearing how it fares with him. In fact, most of us are re-reading all the choices so far; we picked our first 4 books at the first meeting, and all were suggestions of favorites we'd love to re-visit and discuss. I think you should urge one of your clubs to take it on!

>4 laytonwoman3rd: I love the idea of a classic lit book club, especially with your theme question.

I run a book club at my library, but ours is the Any Book Book Club; there's not assigned book, and every month we just chat about what we've each been reading since the last meeting.

I belong to a book club that has been meeting since 2002. Membership has changed, but there are a few of us who have been there since the beginning.

Our only rules are that it must be available in paperback and be fewer than 500 pages, a rule we do not always follow. Lately, we have also been looking at availability as ebook and audiobook as well.

We meet in June to discuss books for the year. Everyone suggests a book and we try for consensus to include it.

This is our list so far for 2026:
January: Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
February: The Lark by E. Nesbit
March: Kingdom of Olives and Ash ed. Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman
April: Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett
May: Butterflies in November by Auður A. Ólafsdóttir
June: Edith Wharton month – read anything you’d like by Wharton

>3 louisisaloafofbreb: - Hope you enjoy the read, Owl!

>4 laytonwoman3rd: - I love this idea, Linda. Is there a "leader" for the group or is it mostly self-directed?

I loved The Grapes of Wrath and Rebecca, though the latter is, to me, more of a great read than a classic.

Given the enthusiasm here, I need to give All the King's Men another try...

>5 ffortsa: - See note above to Linda :)

How do your groups choose books?

>6 SandDune: - I'm so impressed by such a long run, Rhian. And I love that Mr. SandDune is also a member. I recently had a conversation with some other people about why so few men seem interested in joining book groups. We couldn't really come up with a plausible reason...

My smaller book group (the one in >2 katiekrug:) also requires that the book be available in paperback.

>7 atozgrl: - That's a great line-up for this year. I would like knowing a bit more in advance what my groups will be reading, but we don't plan ahead.

My bigger group also does a holiday get-together with a white elephant exchange :) All the gifts seem to skew bookish or boozish. Sometimes both...

>8 laytonwoman3rd: - Ah, there is a leader!

>9 scaifea: - I would love to start a No Specific Book Club, Amber (or Any Book Book Club). I just like talking about books... Both of the groups I belong to do usually end up sharing other things they've been reading, and I've gotten some good recs that way.

>10 BLBera: - Another long-timer! My smaller group also has a page limitation, but it's ~325 max. I love the idea of doing an author month rather than a specific book. That could make for a great discussion.

>12 katiekrug: Mr SandDune is actually in an online book club as well, with two of his male friends, and one of those friends used to be in a football Dads book club, so there are some male book club members. But I agree, not very many.

Judy and I belong to two very different groups.

One has been in existence since 1994 believe it or not. We read mostly fiction try to have book available in paperback and audiobook and under 300 - 400 pages.

The moderator picks the books with suggestion from the group and we meet once a month in a cosy little library meeting room in someones apartment building. We pretty much stick to talking about the book and digressions are discouraged .

The other group meets in our apartment and a great deal of socializing and wine drinking goes on before the book is discussed. Very different.

This month we read A Tale for the Time Being in one group and Thomas Pynchon Vineland in the other,

Looking forward to picking up some good suggestions from the rest of this group

I started and ran a book club for volunteers at my local zoo (of which I am one) from 2018 to 2023. It still exists now but I'm just a member and someone else runs it. We read books about animals and nature 6 times a year. When I ran it I tried to set the schedule for the whole calendar year in advance (based on advice from @bell7) but the woman who runs it now is more flexible. Recently we've read:
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire

I'm also in a No-Specific-Book Club with some friends where we get on a video call once a month and talk about what we've been reading or are excited to read soon. One of us takes notes on the titles of the books we talk about so everyone has them for recommendations, etc.

>11 katiekrug:, >12 katiekrug: Yes, our "leader"--the guy who put forth the idea for the club--is a professor of history and political science, and a social activist well known in the community for participating in volunteer efforts. He comes to our Sunday afternoon meetings straight from serving in a soup kitchen. He's low key, easy-going, and quite good at keeping the discussion going. So far he hasn't shown any tendency to dominate the conversation. I was a bit worried about that going in, since I know how professors can be...

My book club has been meeting monthly since 1995. We were all working mothers with infants in a weekly "Mommy and me" class. There are only 6 of us, and we've had to move to zoom since three of our members left the area. We mostly read literary fiction, with a sprinkling of non-fiction, and often the most interesting part of the discussion is the choice of what to read next. I get a lot of flak (mostly kind-hearted) because I've often already read some of the choices. Even after all these years I'm still surprised that a few of the participants can't seem to finish one book a month.

>13 SandDune: - Good for Mr. SandDune!

>14 magicians_nephew: - Both of my groups involve a lot of socializing, which I don't mind. The larger group (which I still need to write something up about) spends the first 45 minutes or so standing around eating and drinking and chatting, which was a bit intimidating the first time I went since I didn't know anybody!

>15 norabelle414: - Interesting that those are sort of the two ends of the spectrum, Nora - one focused on a specific theme and one with no specific focus, much less book! I like the sound of both, though.

>16 laytonwoman3rd: - Oh, wow, that sounds excellent, Linda. Lucky you!

>17 vivians: - My smaller group limited the number of pages in the books selected because some people were afraid they wouldn't finish in time. And this is the group that meets every other month!

I'm so impressed by how long some of these groups have been maintained.

>17 vivians: Yes, Vivian! Some of my group members have already started the book for the next month when we meet. I usually read it the week before! LT has made me forget that most people don't read more than a book a month.

Hi book-clubbers!

A newcomer here. I was encouraged to share the information about Geneva International Book Club, which is about 15 years old. So I created a thread here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/377409#n9070439

At our next meeting on January 13, 2026 we will be discussing Ordinary Human Failings. Megan Nolan

This book was chosen by the majority vote during our session on Contemporary Irish Fiction on October 28, 2025.

If you are interested, you can check out the book selection presentation here:
https://www.genevainternationalbookclub.com/post/slides-2025

All the suggested books were written in the last three years:
The Wren, the Wren. Anne Enright
Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way. Elaine Feeney
Time of the Child. Niall Williams
The Alternatives. Caoilinn Hughes
The Bee Sting. Paul Murray

It goes without saying that you are welcome to attend if you find yourself in Geneva at the right time.

Vladyslav

>19 BLBera: "LT has made me forget that most people don't read more than a book a month." SO true!

>19 BLBera: / >21 laytonwoman3rd: - Same. I have to remind myself at least they're reading :)

>20 VladysKovsky: - Thanks for sharing this. Sounds like a really robust group, which is always great to see.

Ordinary Human Failings is on my short list to read soon!

The other group I am a member of was about a year or so old when I joined. It grew out of a mothers group in a neighboring town, and I may be the only member who doesn't have children. The group is (mostly) great - I love how diverse it is (apart from being all-female) and that we read a range of books. Our monthly meetings usually average 12-15 people which is sometimes chaotic, but we always have a good discussion. I've met some great people through the group and while I don't exactly love them all, I do admire them all for their openness, welcoming spirit, and commitment to the group.

People sign up a year or so in advance to host in their home (hosting is not a requirement to join), and about two months out from "their" meeting, the host nominates three books to read and the group votes. I am hosting this month, and we are reading Happiness by Aminatta Forna.

Some of our "best" reads (best in terms of discussion-generating) from the past year or so:
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
Wellness by Nathan Hill
All Fours by Miranda July
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

It has taken me longer than planned to return here and report on my second book club. The second book club is also at the local senior center. It is a newer club, and I think it may have started around the time I first started going to the senior center or a little bit after. I was not able to attend for the first year because their meeting time overlapped with an exercise class I attend. But they changed the meeting time, so I have been able to join them since then.

This book is the Challenged Books Club, and we read books that people have challenged or tried to have removed from schools or libraries. Most of the books we have read have been YA books. Quite a few of them have been rereads for me, but books that I have not read in a long time, so reading them again has been useful. There are also books that have been brand new to me. I've been attending their meetings for the past two years, and the schedule was that we met in the spring and fall, then broke for the summer. They said they had tried meeting in the summer, but attendance was bad, so they decided to skip summer. However, the group leadership has changed, and I saw an email this week which said they were going to try meeting this summer.

I believe the group leaders have chosen the books we would be reading. Last year they did bring us some suggested books, which we voted on. We went through that process twice, and wound up deciding to read all the suggested books. The group leadership changed in September. It had been led by a couple, but they have relocated to a different state to be closer to one of their children, and another member of the group volunteered to take over leadership. Discussion has been less on-topic, straying off the book more, since the change. I guess we'll see how that goes.

Our reading schedule so far this year is as follows:
January - Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison
February - 1984 by George Orwell
March - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor
April - Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Obviously we will need to pick more reads for the rest of the year. The number of people attending this group has varied quite a bit. We had a really large crowd at one meeting. It was a smaller group last fall.

>11 katiekrug: >13 SandDune: Both of my book clubs do have men attending, though there are definitely more women. The Challenged Books Club was being led by a couple, and the man was the primary leader. He always had a lot to contribute to the discussion. I don't think we've had any men in the group since he left though.

The other club has quite a few men in it right now, relatively speaking. The couple that led the Challenged Books also attended that one quite often. But even after they left, we have at least 4 men who attend regularly now, and some others less often. It's always valuable to hear their viewpoint.

Thank you, Katie, for setting this thread up!

There is such a variety here. In person or online, neighborhood/friends or Library/Senior Center. How books get chosen varies, as does the flavor of the book club by the genre(s). Well done, LTers.

My book club has been meeting since 1997. We took our name from the subdivision we lived in and changed it when quite a few of us didn't live there any more. I’m a charter member. There are only three left of the original seven, with only one still living in Redbud. We're down to ten from a high of twelve. We don’t plan on adding any members, since we like the dynamic as it is.

The way we choose books is that each member (and it’s been all women since its inception) chooses her book for the book club year. She can just tell the group what her choice is and you can like it or lump it, or she can bring the titles of two or more books and solicit the group’s opinion. We have had poetry, informational nonfiction, memoir/autobiography/biography, contemporary and historical fiction, speculative fiction, crime fiction, one graphic novel, and childrens/YA. At each meeting the woman who chose the book gives as much or as little info about the author and/or book as she wants to, then we go around and each person expresses her opinion. If someone hasn’t finished the book and plans on doing so, tough luck, since spoilers are a major part of our discussion. There is some give and take during the meeting with interruptions and digressions, but by the end everyone has given her opinion, even if she’s abandoned it or not even started it. There is a lot of non-book discussion too, as we're all friends in addition to book club sisters.

Here’s the schedule for The Redbud and Beyond Bookclub for our 2025-2026 Book Club Year.

2025 Jul – Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro **abandoned at 56%**
Aug – The Awakening by Kate Chopin – read in my 20s, remembered the ending, and just, No.
Sep – Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie – read the intro and first chapter and no again.
Oct – The Future by Naomi Alderman – loved it. Gave it 4.5 stars.
Nov – The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon – abandoned. It didn’t capture my interest.
Dec – Yellowface by RF Kuang – appreciated the writing, loved how the MC was portrayed, although I disliked her. Gave it 3.5 stars.
2026 Jan – How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith – started for January 11th’s book club meeting. Might not get it finished, but I’ll get more than halfway through for sure.
Feb – Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope. Ugh. I’ll start it, but no guarantees.
Mar – The Women by Kristin Hannah. Also ugh. I’ll start it, but I’m not usually happy reading WWII fiction.
April – How to Read a Book by Monica Wood. My choice. I haven’t read it, as I never read books before recommending them to book club.
May – book selection for 2026-2027

I always start the month’s book. I’ve abandoned 40%, and of the 60% I've finished, have liked 40%. I definitely have read and liked books I otherwise would have not read.

We’re all voracious readers, and, finally, we’re a voracious crew. There’s always food and drink.

What a fun idea! I've starred this topic. My local bookstore hosts 3 different book clubs. This is the third year for the Queer Book Club.

January Miss Major Speaks ✅
February The Chosen and the Beautiful
March A Gentleman’s Gentleman
April George Falls Through Time
May Lavender House
June Masquerade
July Outdrawn
August The Palace of Eros
September Sorcery and Small Magics
October Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

The group has expanded every year, from 5-10 people in year 1 to 15-20 people regularly last year. It'll be interesting to see if it grows much more this year. It's a small bookstore, not sure how they'd make it work. Tomorrow night is our first meeting of 2026.

I've occasionally made it to the mainstream book club if a title was particularly interesting to me. That's been around much longer, I think, and is very well attended with lots of regulars, treats, drinks, etc. They break into 2 groups in the space.

And there's also a cookbook club that meets less regularly. I haven't checked that out yet.

Plus, a friend is starting a book discussion group on discord for Decentering Whiteness, though we haven't really gotten going yet.

I'm really enjoying hearing about everyone's book clubs, so thanks for contributing to the thread! IF you think of it, feel free to come back after your next meeting and tell us about your discussion. My "big" group is meeting tonight at my house to discuss Happiness. I'll report back :)

I'm not even a member of a book club (boo hoo), but this thread is still fun to read.

I'm an admin for the "smut" book club - our presence is mostly via a Telegram group but we meet in person once a quarter. We pick two titles per month, one "light" smut and one "dark" smut and discuss at the end of the month. Selection is by a vote - one of the owners lists 3 or 4 titles and the most popular vote is the book for the month. Titles are pulled from a spreadsheet any member can contribute suggestions to throughout the month.

>30 elorin: That sounds like fun!

My big book club met at my house on Thursday evening. There were 17 people, but we made the space and the discussion work. Happiness made for a lot of good discussion, though we all agreed it was a slow-ish read, because it was so meaty. At the end of each meeting, we rate the book 1-10 (no half or quarter numbers allowed), and it averaged right around a 6.5, which is solidly in the middle of our reads and ratings.

Would I recommend the book as a book club selection? Yes, definitely, as long as your group doesn't expect only compelling page-turners :)

Interesting comments on Happiness. I loved it. The two storylines worked for me and I loved the foxes. Good to know it is a good discussion book.

Great idea for a thread! I am currently in 3 book groups, maybe too much? There is an on-line lesbian book group; a regular book group; and then I am just starting a book group focussing on civil resistance of our local indivisible group. Our first read will be March Book One by John Lewis. People are excited about doing a graphic novel, and my memory is that this was a thought-provoking read.

Just found this thread and love hearing about everyone's book groups. My book group meets at the local library, and I have belonged for 10 years. We read a wide variety of books and generally choose our books from month to month.

Tomorrow, we are discussing Mad Honey. I loved it and I know others did as well.

The librarian organizes the group but is open to suggestions for books. I pulled together a list and checked on availability. I will let you know what we choose. I've read Yellowface and The Briar Club already and think they will enjoy them.

From Here to the Great Unknown
Yellowface
The Wedding People
Atmosphere
Great Big Beautiful Life
The Briar Club

My book club just discussed The Lark, which all enjoyed and appreciated, considering the stress of our current news cycle. We enjoyed the Jane/Mr. Rochester call-out to Jane Eyre.

One thing we disagreed on was the extent of the effects of WWI on the characters. Jane and Lucy were still in school, but all in all, seemed remarkably unaffected by the war, as did the veterans, I thought. Others thought that some of the male characters did show effects.

We also discussed how lucky the characters were.

My book club's February meeting was held yesterday, after being postponed twice (should be the first Sunday of the month, but...y'know...weather). We discussed All the King's Men, which of course led to a lot of very relevant observations about the current state of affairs. Corrupt politicians, ends justifying means (or NOT), when does compromise become capitulation, etc. etc. There were only the three of us (our fourth member,84-year-old Camilla, did not show, and we're a bit concerned about her, since she is reclusive and we don't know if she has any social or family contacts checking up on her). We ran well over our allotted 90 minute time, but nobody else needed the room, so it was all good.

>35 witchyrichy: - I really liked Mad Honey, too.

My bigger group is reading The Wedding People this month. Based on some of the chatter in the group text, people are really enjoying it, as am I.

Yellowface would be a great choice for discussion!

>36 BLBera: - I'd not heard of that title before, Beth, but it sounds interesting. I like WWI-adjacent books.

>37 laytonwoman3rd: - Love a book discussion that goes long! My big group usually goes at least 2 hours or so.

I hope someone can check on your missing group member.

>38 katiekrug: The librarian came with her own list...the library owns book club sets that makes it easy to get copies to everyone. We are going to read Remarkably Bright Creatures. I have heard good things.

>39 witchyrichy: - I really enjoyed RBC.

>40 katiekrug: I grabbed the audio from Hoopla yesterday as I have a few road trips and am already engaged. I like stories told from multiple perspectives, and the narrator is doing a great job with the various voices.

Our next pick is The Sisters, which I'm reading in print and audio together because it's so long. It was a NY Times top 10 pick for 2025 but I haven't heard any talk about it on LT or anywhere else. So far the narrative, a family saga focused on biracial children of Swedish and Tunisian parents combined with the author's own story, is compelling.

>42 vivians: - I'll look for your thoughts on it when you're finished, Vivian. I'm not familiar with it at all.

My big book club met last night to discuss The Wedding People. Overall, it was rated pretty highly, but there was a definite divide among those who were pleasantly surprised that it had more depth than they were expecting and those who wanted more depth and felt it was too shallow. No pleasing everyone, lol!

>2 katiekrug: Just to add to Katie's reference to her new book club, "Women with Spines", I thought I would provide some background to the name. My RL bookclub started about 2011 and was named "Women with Spines" at the suggestion of the husband of one of the members. I think it's a most wonderful name! There has been some loss and gain of members over the years (I joined shortly after moving to Washington in 2020) and we currently have 6 members, three of whom are originals (I think). It's a wonderful group of women, all of whom do indeed "have spines"!!

Through my time with the group we have changed our method of selecting books every year. This year it's "hostess choses". I hosted in December and, in honor of the anniversary, I chose Emma. Other books for this year are: (our "year" runs from October to May -- not sure why because as far as I know the group has never included teachers or mothers with children in school 🤷‍♀️)

October - Wild Beautiful and Free by Sephfronia Scott
November - Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce
December - Emma by Jane Austen
January - Let Them by Mel Robbins
February - My Grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry by Frederik Backman
March - Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
April - The Last Days of Cafe Leila by Donia Bijan
May - Isola by Allegra Goodman

>45 RebaRelishesReading: My book club is reading Isola in May also. That's the month that I am scheduled to lead the discussion, so I will need to research the author. Interesting coincidence!

>46 atozgrl: Coincidence indeed. Perhaps we can share some thoughts before and after the meetings. We meet 2nd Monday's - you?

Geneva International book club is holding a book selection meeting next Tuesday on the theme Legal Process in Literature. I know Bleak House will be on the list, possibly The Trial. Curious to see the rest of the books on offer and the selection winner of course

>15 norabelle414: Well, my zoo book club has been moved to a day I can't ever attend (mid-day on a work day) and my online no-specific-book club hasn't met in a few months.

A friend and I are hoping to start an in-person no-specific-book club (probably with a different name) but it's a struggle to find somewhere with enough space to meet on a weekend.

I have two real life book clubs. I attended one last night. The book for discussion was Anxious People. I had not read it yet but they all really enjoyed it and it does sound like a winner. I attended because I wanted to get the list of books for the next six months.
March: Theo of Golden, Unfortunately I will not be able to get this one read in March and I won't be able to attend either.
April: The Book of Longings - Sue Monk Kidd
May: Part of Your World - Abby Jimenez
June: Frozen River - Ariel Lawhon
July: Atmosphere - Taylor Jenkins Reid
August: The River is Waiting - Wally Lamb

My other bookclub is currently reading God on Mute, Engaging the Silence of Unanswered Prayer, Pete Greig. My copy arrived today. This one has a 40 day devotional that started with Ash Wednesday. I'm behind.
Others
The Correspondent - Virginia Evans (I've read this and liked it a lot)
Hello Stranger - Katherine Center
The Frozen River - Ariel Lawhon. I'm hosting this one for both bookclubs.

>47 RebaRelishesReading: We meet on the 4th Tuesday of the month, so you'll be ahead of me. I'm likely to be reading the book around the 2nd Monday. I'll definitely be interested to see what you and your club think of the book.

Our current running order is as follows:

March Wifedomby Anna Funder;
April Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen;
May Windswept: Why Women Walk by Annabel Abbs;
June Collected Poems of Carol Ann Duffy

This month we have our second male member of the group. Mr SandDune has been the lone one since he joined about 2003.

The book discussion of March Book 1 went very well, and we are planning to read the other two books of the series for March.

The lesbian book group read The Safekeep; which in my opinion was pretty good, but definitely some flaws. Overall people liked it and it led to good discussion. We are reading Greta and Valdin next, which I read a few years ago and really liked.

The regular book group is next reading War for the Oaks which is Urban Fantasy--I will let you know how that discussion goes.

Three book groups is really too many, but I do skip the Lesbian bookgroup pretty often--it's on-line, which is not my favorite.

Thanks for all your contributions, everyone! I really enjoying hearing about the different groups/meetings/reading.

My smaller group met last Tuesday to discuss The Five, which I had DNFed (not because it was bad, but because I knew a lot of the social history already and grasped the author's thesis right from the beginning, so reading 200+ pages didn't seem necessary...).

Re-posted from my thread:
"One woman couldn't make it, so there were five (ha!) of us. Our hostess treated us to a wonderful dinner of endive salad and an "eggplant bolognese" pasta. I'm not a big eggplant fan, but it was delicious! So a combination dinner party and book club :) I was the only one who didn't finish the book, but the discussion was wide-ranging enough that I could contribute. And then as often happens with this group, it became a sort of "no specific book" book club where we talked about other things we'd been reading, our other book clubs (three of us are in other groups as well), and other book-related stuff. It was great fun. Our April book is James, which I've already read, but I'm happy to re-visit it, probably on audio this time."

And my larger group meets in a couple of weeks to discuss The Names, which I haven't started yet.

On a related book club note, one of the members of my smaller group is a friend I first met through another book club, which I eventually left because the leader was very annoying and seemed to not like me personally (I am *delightful* so I just didn't get it, lol). Said friend called me last night to let me know the leader had passed away suddenly yesterday. I feel bad, because he wasn't a terrible person or anything, we just didn't rub along well. Anyway, I did jokingly say to my husband that maybe I'd re-join that group, but three seems like a bit much :-P

Quite unlike many bookclubs we run both Book Discussion and Book Selection meetings. In a Book Selection meeting we have a presentation by one of the participants on a specific topic, which includes subject matter itself and the suggested books on the topic.

At the Book Selection last week we had an excellent presentation by Lisa on Legal Processes in Literature attended by 20 people. I loved the focus of how Literature "puts legal systems on trial". The discussion touched not only on how the law often fails the people it is supposed to protect but also on examples of abuse or collapse of the law.

You can find the presentation here:
https://www.genevainternationalbookclub.com/post/slides-2026

The books on the topic were quite diverse, I only read one of them and recognised two more. Three new books have joined my growing "to be read" list including the winner Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal, which received 13 votes.

Here is the list of other books from the selection:

Bleak House by Charles Dickens - 7 votes
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston- 3 votes
Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o- 9 votes
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez - 3 votes
Blindness by Jose Saramago - 5 votes
The Mersault Investigation by Kamel Daoud - 7 votes
Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior - 2 votes

We had our March meeting on Tuesday at which we discussed Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder. Everyone was pretty positive around it with ratings ranging from a 7 to a 9 out of 10. Next month’s book is Northanger Abbey but I’ll be away for that one.

>55 VladysKovsky: That sounds like a very interesting type of book club Vladyslav.

Our March meeting will be this Friday to discuss Kingdom of Olives and Ash, a collection of essays about Palestine. I hope it will be a good discussion. I am not quite finished, but by Friday I will have read most of the essays.

>55 VladysKovsky: That sounds like a fascinating book group. What a lot of work goes into picking the books! I will be interested to see how you all like the book.

>49 norabelle414: My new in-person "bring your own book" club is scheduled for late March and I'm pretty excited. I briefly considered joining my local library branch's in-person book club but I looked at their schedule for the year and over half of the picks are books or authors I can't stand, so nevermind!

Before l moved to a new town about a year ago, l was in 2 conventional book clubs. One was a sub-group of my women’s club; the other a neighborhood group.
Since l’ve been in my new place l’ve found 2 rather unique groups. My library has a ‘walk & talk’ book club where we meet at a paved trail and talk about books we’ve liked while we walk. The other is a ‘book & puzzle exchange’. We meet once a month and bring 1-2 books and/or 1-2 puzzles that we liked. We talk briefly about the books we’ve brought and then draw numbers to choose different ones to take home.
Both of these suit me well as l’m not going to read a book if l don’t like it.
And l have to admit l’ve discovered great and wonderful books through book clubs that l might never have picked up otherwise.

>57 Kristelh: >59 banjo123:
Thank you!
This book club has been going strong for 15 years. Eventually it morphed into this format with the voting based selection of books on a given topic.
We have two more interesting book selection themes for this spring - Contemporary Portuguese Literature and Novels That Became Operas
For the book discussions we have The Drowned World next week from the Climate Fiction topic and Noli Me Tangere in six weeks.

>62 VladysKovsky: I just read The Drowned World. It is not his best book but I was impressed because he wrote this way before global warming was a thing. I’ll look forward to your comments. Please let us know!

>63 Kristelh: Kristel, I agree with you! I just finished The Drowned World. The novel is majestically atmospheric while at the same time a bit racist and misogynist in a very English mid-20th century way. It will be good for a book club discussion!
I much preferred his Empire of the Sun! Which one was your favourite by Ballard?

>64 VladysKovsky: I agree that Empire of the Sun has got to be his best but I’ve read
Crash: another one of his greats but it’s not my favorite but a better book than the DRowned World. I’ve also read
Super Cannes which I thought was pretty good, 4 stars
Atrocity Exhibit, 2 stars
High rise 3 stars.
Overall he is a good author but he writes about stuff that is hard to stomach. Drowned World is his least good writing but it was his debut novel.

>65 Kristelh: Kristel, that's impressive! Looks like you have JG Ballard all covered. Is there a film based on Crash? I might have seen that one.

We haven't gotten a new book in 3+ weeks I don't know when my next book is gonna be

I recently joined (ish - Waterstones make you sign up on eventbrite each time, a decision I don't love) a Novella reading group. April's choice is Reflections in a Golden Eye, I've not read any McCullers, so looking forward to it.

>66 VladysKovsky: Yes, I think there is a movie of crash. There are still Ballards I haven’t read. I read the 1001 list and I think he has several books on the list.

Kingdom of Olives and Ash
This is a collection of essays edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman. Working with the organization Breaking the Silence, they invited several writers to visit Israel and Palestine and write about their experiences. I read this for my book club, and we had one of the better discussions we've had in a while.

Our next book is Ship Fever

>70 BLBera: Ohhh! I loved Ship Fever and still recommend it to people looking for short stories.

>71 ReneeMarie: I have loved everything I've read by Barrett and am really looking forward to this.

Geneva International Bookclub met on the last day of March to talk about Portuguese literature. Pedro prepared an excellent presentation with an overview of recent history of the country and its literature. What a wealth of information! As often, a number of books were added to my ever-growing reading list. You can find the presentation here:
https://www.genevainternationalbookclub.com/post/slides-2026

For the selection Pedro suggested to focus on currently active authors translated into English or French, thus no Pessoa, Saramago, or Lobo Antunes. Of the 25 people present 15 voted for the book we selected to read Jerusalem by Gonçalo M. Tavares

The other books suggested had the following vote tallies:
The Implacable Order of Things by Jose Luis Peixoto- 4 votes
Kokoschka’s Doll by Alfonso Cruz - 11 votes
That Hair by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida - 10 votes
Le Domain du Temps by Joao Tordo - 6 votes

We finally got our last book of the year its Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Both my fact-to-face and online book groups meet tomorrow. My F2F group will discuss Ship Fever and my online one will talk about When the Cranes Fly South.

Our book Club took a look at Isabelle Allendes The Wind Knows my Name

Two parallel stories about orphans escaping horrors and then being caught up in the nightmare of American immigration policy circa 2020. (and in flashbacks, 1944)

Agreed with the politics (most of us) but disliked the book for poor plotting, one note characters, and a couple of silly and trivial subplots.

Rare to have a book so unanimously disliked. Fair warning

>76 magicians_nephew: I enjoyed Isabel Allende’s earlier books but haven’t enjoyed her more recent books.

We met last night to discuss Northanger Abbey - always a favourite with me. Next month’s is Windswept: Why Women Walk by Annabel Abbs

Oh dear! I had forgotten all about this thread :(

My RL bookclub met last Monday to discuss The Last Days of Cafe Leila, a book set in post revolution Iran. The main character had moved to the US after the (Iranian) revolution and had been working as a nurse in the U.S. for many years. She takes her teenaged daughter with her on a visit to her father who operates a cafe which provides a safe haven for people opposed to the post-revolution Iranian regime. The bulk of the story is set in Iran and about life there under the Ayatollah.

The book was selected last fall, long before we had any idea of what (fill in your own name/adjective here...my choice would not be printable) was going to do and how things would be there now. An excellent cathartic conversation ensued.

Great to see people continuing to share here!

My bigger book group meets tonight to discuss How to Say Babylon, which I struggled with in the beginning but ultimately found to be very good. I highly recommend the audio, as all the patois flowed much better for me that way than in print.

My book club meets tomorrow night. We are discussing The Correspondent by Evans. Which did make the short list for the Women's prize.

>60 norabelle414: The first meeting of my new Bring-Your-Own-Book Club went *great*, everyone loved it. We're having a second meeting on May 3 and most of the same people have signed up, plus a couple more.

I did make it to the most recent meeting of my zoo book club, but half of the members didn't finish the book Mr. Hornaday's War: How a Peculiar Victorian Zookeeper Waged a Lonely Crusade for Wildlife that Changed the World and the other half (myself included) already read the book for the same book club 4 years ago and didn't remember a lot of details so it was not a very engaging meeting. Next up is Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II by Vicki Croke.

>81 norabelle414: - I remember you saying you were having trouble finding a place for the new group to meet. Where did you end up? I'd really like to start a "No Specific Book" club.

>81 norabelle414: Does your group select books based on the length of the title? lol

>82 katiekrug: We went to a Tatte (chain coffee shop) which is very large and a couple of us got there an hour early to camp out at the biggest table. We also instituted a hard cap of 12 attendees (with an RSVP system; first-come-first-served). We're hoping that the weather will be nice for our May meeting and we can meet outside in the park across the street from the Tatte. We also looked at booking a meeting room at the library but preferred someplace where people could buy coffee and food. Once we get into a rhythm we might mix it up with different locations.

>83 RebaRelishesReading: We read mostly non-fiction books about the science and history of animals and their titles do tend to follow a particular formula - {generic 1-3 word title}: {long detailed description}

>84 norabelle414: We’ve just put in a limit of 12 people on our book club as well. A couple of years ago we were struggling for numbers but now we have a waiting list!

The Challenged Books club I belong to met yesterday to discuss Flowers for Algernon. There was mixed reaction to this one. Some loved it, and others didn't. One remembered the short story version well from when she was young. She had read it several times and cried every time. (I also remember crying after reading the story when I was young.) She didn't like the longer book version. Several people didn't think of this story as Science Fiction. (I think what people think of as science fiction today has changed since the original story was written in the 50's. It seems more narrowly defined nowadays.) We got a pretty wide range of ratings this time, from 3 stars to 5 stars. But I think everyone felt the book was worth reading.

>81 norabelle414: Love the idea of a "Zoo" Book club.

>86 atozgrl: Big fan of Flowers for Algernon here.

The movie "Charley" is pretty good too.

It was even a short lived Broadway Musical if you can imagine Charley doing a song and dance number with Algernon the rat

>87 magicians_nephew: we're all zoo volunteers so the time we spend at book club talking about zoo-related books counts toward our professional development

>89 norabelle414:, that is very cool that you can have a book club and also get professional development points, too.

>88 magicians_nephew: I saw the movie many, many years ago and don't remember anything about it. But I cannot imagine that musical. I had not heard about that. It sounds odd.

My smaller book club met on Tuesday to discuss James by Percival Everett. Everyone liked it, though I think those who read (or re-read) Huck Finn before picking up James got more out of it, in a way. I know I found it interesting to think about what and why Everett included and excluded certain parts of the earlier work. This was my second time with James, as my other book club read it in November 2024.

Our discussion was held at one of the members' homes, and she made an excellent (vegan) jambalaya and corn fritters to fuel our talk :)

Next read for this group is The Virgin Suicides.

>80 Kristelh: I’m popping onto this thread for the first time and I’m wondering what your book club thought of The Correspondent. I will be reading it for two of the three bookclubs I attend.

My book group met on Monday to discuss More Than Enough. The general consensus was very positive, although none of us could make sense of the convention of a book club with a rule that members cannot read the book. Otherwise, it received a general thumbs up.

>93 Carmenere:. Everyone really liked it, Lynda. it was a good discussion. We are reading Hello Stranger next but not discussing it until June. Everyone is too busy in May.
My other bookclub is reading Part of Your World.

I think both of those are in the romance genre which is not one of my favorites.

>92 katiekrug: Did you talk about the surprise at the end? What did people think about that? that James was Huck's father That was a flaw for me, maybe the only one.

I am reading Butterflies in November for my face-to-face book club. I like it, but I imagine there will be some who don't. I look forward to discussing it.

Mine sadly ended a week or two ago, only 2 books this year :(

>96 BLBera: - TBH, we barely touched on it, as we focused a lot on the themes of language and code-switching. When we did get around to the surprise, we talked about Huck's reaction and how James had to articulate the differences between them that still existed that meant Huck couldn't just join him and his wife and daughter so that it starkly illustrated how the institution of slavery over-rode everything else, even that most basic of an institution, the family (I'm not sure I'm saying this well...). It wasn't a flaw for me, but I don't think it was really necessary?

>95 Kristelh: Thanks, good to know!

>96 BLBera: It was a flaw for me as well, and made it hard for me to rate the book. There were a few other things that also bothered me, but that was the big one.

>99 katiekrug: I didn't think it was necessary.

Our book group is discussing Butterflies in November today. It's a quirky book, so it will be interesting to see what people think about it.

My online book club (thru the Community College) just finished The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris. Everyone liked the historical angle but the romance, Hallmarky.

>102 BLBera: Wow, you got me with that title. I'll have to see if local libraries have it.

ETA: Woo hoo!

Wish my book club was still going on, and I don't know if there are any other bookclubs around me :(

>105 louisisaloafofbreb: You could always start your own. Or see if your local public library has one.

At one point I was running and keeping track of three book groups, two of which I founded or co-founded (history, historical fiction), and the third (classics) was one that was originally a group at the bookstore where I work, but we liberated it from the store.

I simply found people I knew who were readers and interested in a book group. Then we met and sorted out the details: how often we would meet, whether a book had to be in paperback to be considered, who could suggest books, how we would select titles, and how far in advance we would select the title for a meeting.

>106 ReneeMarie: ooo yeah that's true, although most of my friends don't read that much, and I can see if my library has one, next week at least since I wont be able to go to one

We had a good discussion of Butterflies in November. A couple of people listened to it, so it's nice to get the oral vs. written perspective. One thing we commented on is that at the end of the paper copies, there are "recipes" of foods that are talked about in the novel. Those are not present in the audiobooks.

People liked the narrator; we talked a bit about why she is unnamed, and in fact, realized that few of the characters are. People liked the boy Tumi and the relationship with the narrator.

We had an exciting book selection meeting on May 5 titled 'Great Novels That Are Also Great Movies'. It is quite widely accepted that 'good books make for bad movies' and vice versa. Our task was to identify exceptions, where the adaptations of excellent novels were as good if not better than the originals. Every participating member selected one novel/film, we shared our suggestions and yours truly compiled it all into a presentation

https://www.genevainternationalbookclub.com/post/slides-2026

We had 15 people attending and all suggestions were favorably received, each and every one getting 7 or more votes. And the winner was Satantango by our recent Nobel winner Laszlo Krasznahorkai, which received 10 votes. We do intend to watch the film as well, although 7-hour running time of this 1994 Béla Tarr's masterpiece https://youtu.be/m1oBSEeXJ_I presents a logistical problem.

The other books/films that featured in the selection were:

The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray - 1975 film by Stanley Kubrick https://youtu.be/U9H1GQHSAT0
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton - 1993 film by Martin Scorsese https://youtu.be/jElgNu31AMA
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes - 1950 film by Nicholas Ray https://youtu.be/4wdGXYUsdQo
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa - 1963 film by Luchino Visconti https://youtu.be/AlPdIrrNnpE
Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison - 1994 film by Edward Zwick https://youtu.be/ySHynOQDsZE
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek - 2001 film by Michael Haneke https://youtu.be/NhYEh7V7HTw
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro - 1993 film by James Ivory https://mubi.com/en/films/the-remains-of-the-day/trailer
Foster by Claire Keegan - 2022 film by Colm Bairéad https://youtu.be/LGWyqty2m-A

>81 norabelle414: The second meeting of my Bring Your Own Book Club went very well! It was nice out so we met outside on a plaza and drank bubble tea and petted some good dogs. I couldn't decide which book to bring so I brought 4 and was mercilessly teased for it.

My tip for a successful Bring Your Own Book club is to assign one attendee to take notes. They can write down all the titles and authors as you go around the group and then distribute the list to the attendees afterward.

>110 norabelle414: - Thanks for that tip, Nora. Definitely a good idea! I have been gauging interest among my bookish acquaintances about a "No Specific Book" club, and I think enough people are interested that I will do a trial run.