Chapter 2: Forming Your Book Group

First and foremost, your book group needs to be about what your group wants to be and wants to read.  As a leader and participant it is imperative that you make this experience your own.  Who wants to be a part of something they don't like or feel that they have ownership over?  Having said that, here are a few of my tips and the size of your group and when to meet. 

Try to make sure that your group doesn't become too large, six to twelve is a good number.  If you have fewer than six with a group that can be hesitant to talk you struggle to keep the discussion going.  If you have more than twelve with eager participants, your more quiet members will be lost.  It's a bit like a well planned dinner party, you want to have a good mix of personalities and too many, can make it a bit like the breakfast scene in Cheaper by the Dozen when they add one more to the table.  Now, let me say this, I won't name names, but when that frog shows up to the table, I have left feeling like Steve Martin, and you just don't want that.

A quick note on those quiet folks in the group.  There are some people who just enjoy coming to hear what others have to say.  It isn't their main goal to discuss as much as it is to hear and learn from others.  As time passes you will learn who these people are in your group, and you will learn to allow them that option as a participant.  Remember this isn't a classroom and you aren't a teacher, you don't call on the one kid who doesn't have their hand raised to force them to give an answer. 

Next, how do you pick when to meet?  Again, this is about what works for YOUR group. 

My faculty and staff group meets on Tuesday and Wednesdays to allow for those who teach on the alternate day to attend.  This group does one book a semester and I do assignments for each meeting that are anywhere between 50 - 100 pages depending on the book.  During the semester, meeting weekly can be a lot especially when the reading is a bit heavy.  Meeting every other week gives everyone a chance to read the assigned reading and not feel overwhelmed with the rest of their schedule.  Now for the participants of this group who are reading, I know you all really wait till the day or night before, don't think I don't know!  To further accommodate their schedules we meet at lunch time and I always provide drinks, and snacks to go along with their lunches.  If it's one thing we southerners do well its eat and talk at the same time. 

My student group works a bit differently and is always in constant flux.  We do one book a month which allows the students a full month to read that month's selection.  Monday afternoons have always seemed to be the best day.  As a leader you have to learn to be flexible, to make sure everyone is satisfied and able to participate, and that sometimes means change and compromise.  Last year I think everyone in the group had Biology lab on Monday afternoon at 5pm.  Tuesday became the best option for several of the participants, so I had a Monday and Tuesday group that year.  I've learned that for this group it is best to just send an email out and try and find out what works best for them and do my best to accommodate the majority of the group. 

Let's recap - you want to make sure you have the right number for your group.  For your group you may have a lucky 13 situation or maybe 5 is the right number for your group.  That's awesome, its about what works for you.  But you have to make sure you have the right mix of folks for it to work.  Once you have your group created you chat with them, find out what day and time works best for them, and do your best to stick with it.

Magpie

Chapter 1: Building the nest

"You get paid to read?"  I get that a lot, and the answer is always the same, "yes, jealous?"  Just a small part of the job that I have at the university I work at is leading book groups.  Yeah, I know, and my parents thought I'd never use that extra English Literature degree.  Part of my job is to lead book groups for students and a seperate group with faculty and staff.  The faculty and staff book group was born from a book group just for faculty in an office I'd previously worked in.  When that office closed, I took the format, participant roster and ran with it. 

As any good planner does, I did research on book groups, and you know what I came up with?  A whole lot of old books (stuff from the early 90's, yeah I called that old) and practically nothing online about book groups like the ones I'd be leading.  So my only option...wing it.  Over the last four years I've lead over 30 book groups with over 470 participants rotating in and out over that time, and I've learned a lot more than I thought. 

This past year our book group discussed Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project and a lot of interesting things came from the discussions on that book.  One of the themes in that book is doing things that make you happy and as an avid estate sale shopper I decided to create a blog about how, as a younger shopper, I've learned to find deals and build a home with some really fun stuff.  Well, clearly that didn't pan out, but I still had the desire to blog, but about what?  This spring one of the faculty told the group that he had begun a book group with some of his students as a result of our time together (see #5 below).  He and the group were curious how I plan for and lead the book groups, mainly if I followed a guide or if I'd found an online resource or what I used.  This is when it happened, I had to share with them that I'd been just winging it for the last four years. 

As faculty and mentors are bound to do, they forced, I mean, encouraged me to begin a blog about what it is I do.  I kinda blew it off, but one faculty member in particular, Marybeth, stayed on me and encouraged me to just create a list of ideas and thoughts.  Nine handwritten pages later I realized, it wasn't just about the groups, it was about books, stories, what the group means to each of us, what a story can do for us.  The blog would be my "Happiness Project".

My plan for this blog is to be a place where we can;
1. Share ideas about how our book groups work
2. Share questions and thoughts on what we are reading so you can participate if you'd like
3. Share all those common things we do when it comes to reading
4. Share activities created for different texts and how it can enrich the reading and group experience
5. Share all the fun suprises that happen when groups of people share their feelings about literature

So settle in, this is gonna be fun, I promise!
Magpie