Book Club Suggestions for 2013As the new year approaches, I can't help but get excited about the prospect of constructing a new book club reading list for our book club - The Ladies of Atlanta Book Club. Each member is asked to present three book suggestions to the club. We will group the books by genre/month (e.g. January will be Chick Lit month). As a group, we will vote on each month's title.
With each passing year, our book club's reading list has evolved from Chick Lit and fluff series to more serious and though-provoking novels. As a result, our group has grown more closely. I can't begin to tell you how much I've enjoyed bonding with these amazing women each month over the past three years. I can't believe our reading group has been going for that long either. I think the secret to our book club's success has been that we include at least one suggestion from each member in our book club's reading list. This gives each person a vested interest in making the club a success, especially in the month during which their book suggestion is being read. Each person feels like they've made a meaningful contribution. And, in the month of a member's book club reading list suggestion, it becomes their turn to host that month's meeting. We run our meetings a potluck dinners, however, each host typically goes above and beyond with their own food prep for their meetings. Each member feels a sense of obligation, especially since we are all a bit competitive about this in a lighthearted way. Starting last year, we discovered a great resource for finding new book club suggestions. It's called Book Club Reading List. We all subscribed to their free quarterly newsletter that tells us about new authors who have made themselves available to attend our meetings. Over the past year, four of the twelve books we read were from this list, and authors actually participated in our meetings over speaker phone. That added a whole new positive dimension to our meetings. In the end, we have a lot of fun. I know how rare it is to find such a great group, so I feel very lucky to now know such an amazing group of women. Stay tuned as I provide the results from our upcoming selection process. See my virtual bookshelf on the right too for books we've read and recommend! |
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