Maybe your group has successfully migrated to Zoom, or are social distancing in someone’s bigggggg backyard. Or maybe you’ve temporarily disbanded or gone on hiatus. Or perhaps, you’re kind of limping along and a teensy bit bored and totally miss getting together in person and having things be, for lack of a better word, normal?
Since things aren’t returning to true normal for a while, consider shaking things up and doing things differently. Here are 10 ideas to help you break out of the book club box:
1. Don’t lock your club into one title. People aren’t reading the way they usually do. Many are pickier, less focused, and have either much less time or way way way too much of it. So give them some room to stretch. Let people choose from two or three books — then discuss them all. Some will read all the books. Some will be happy to choose just one. Some, as always, won’t read anything but the Zoom invite. There will be plenty of time in 2021 to do things the old way — so continue to loosen the reigns.
2. Stay outside despite the weather. Outdoor picnic in down coats? Meet mid-day when the sun is warmest? Bundle up, bring thermoses of tea or hot toddies or whatever. There is no such thing as bad weather or bad book club meetings, only bad clothing. If you can do it in a parking lot for a football game, you can do it for book club! (Okay, maybe you just can’t, but you can’t blame me for the suggestion.)
3. Have a book swap for the holidays, instead of a book discussion. (You can discuss who folds down their corners and who has too many books on Kindle to want any paperbacks.) Or better yet? Do a book drive for a local charity or for a local hospital. Donate. Give. You’ll feel better immediately.
4. Invite more authors to join your meetings on Zoom. Due to the lack of bookstore events, more authors are willing to meet with you than ever before. You never know who you’ll be able to convince — ask with abandon!
5. Invite new members to spice things up. Here’s how to find them: Walk around your neighborhood and see who has a porch with heaters AND firepits. Invite all of those people to join your book club.
6. Meet on Zoom, per usual, but with hats or shirts that represent the book. (Oh come on, it will be fun.) Okay, then just create a drinking game that is related to the book. (THAT will be fun.)
7. Meet on Zoom but … take turns reading your favorite paragraphs from the book. Meet on Zoom but … have one person find videos of the author’s interviews and play them.
8. Okay, enough Zoom! Try a social reading app instead like Bookship or Bookclubz or Book Movement. It’s different and fun and low-key.
9. All right, maybe you are craving MORE intellectual stimulation, not less? Why not try reading a pair of books on the same topic? Have you read the prison memoir Orange Is the New Black by Piper Kerman? Compare and contrast it with Prison Baby, a memoir by Deborah Jiang Stein. Or how about historical fiction and biography of the same person? Try Zelda by Nancy Milford and Z by Therese Anne Fowler. There’s a lot to discuss from different perspectives. And all those times you noticed that two books were out on the exact same topic? Read them both.
10. If everyone is still addicted to Netflix, choose a book made into a film or TV show and discuss which is better, the book or the film? (Spoiler alert: it’s usually the book.) And many shows you may be surprised to learn are based on books. House of Cards was based on a book by Michael Dobbs. Discover it! And so was The Queen’s Gambit — you might be surprised to learn more about author Walter Tevis, who has a fascinating life and connection to the material. Dig in!
Whatever you choose to do, we hope your group continues reading and discussing through the winter season. Books will continue to warm our souls, even when the world tests our resilience and patience … so stay warm and safe and curled up with a book!
