The Random Person's Book Club discussion
Starting a Book club
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I don't have any experience with book clubs, online or otherwise, but I would think that the best way to do it is have everyone's email addy and a set time for discussion. Then, set up a chat room through aol or another ISP to discuss the books. Most ISP's even provide a home page and sometimes you can include a chatroom there. Each week (or whatever)a different member should pick a book that they think would be of interest to everyone else (not just themselves). This would work best if everyone has similar interests in genre but not authors.
Thank you, Barry - this is great advice. I really like the chat room idea.
Claire, you could do a private (even private invisible) group on here. Depending on how many people you have involved, you could either alternate turns selecting your books or nominate and vote. I think the former is a better idea because each of you will be stretched a bit more than if you vote. After you post the selection, you can then decide on a date to begin discussions. One thing about goodreads is you can fit your discussions into your day... but also you could decided to all be on it at once and have more involved discussions that way. You could also move part of the more active discussion to instant messenger. Just some thoughts and ideas.
I run a "regular" book club, but I do have an idea for you. Why not set up a blog site? Then you can each post comments as you read through the book. If you want, you could put the title/author of the book in the main post, as well as any discussion questions you might want to use. Then each participant could post their comments under that main post. They could give their opinions or just answers to the disucssion questions. My book club has a blog, but I'm usually the only one doing the writing - everyone else just wants to read. If you think it might help, feel free to check out my page: www.storiedellesorelle.blogspot.com
Hope this helps!
I have a few friends that live all across the county, but happily enough they are all on Goodreads. We really want to start our own new book club but aren't sure how to go ahead and get it really moving. I know many of you probably have online book club experience, and I was wondering if you had any suggestions for us. How do you communicate? How do you decide on books? I'd love to hear what you all have to say on how to make your book club(s) a worthwhile experience and keep it interesting.