Provo, UT

If you’ve ever thought about joining a book club, I highly recommend it. I’m a member of two, and I love them both. Book clubs are a fantastic way to find out about good books and have a chance to discuss them with people you like. When a group of people all read the same thing and get together, you inevitably get a lot of different opinions, and it’s really interesting to see things from other people’s perspective for a while.

Like I said, I’m a member of two book clubs. The first one is an online one with a few of my friends (we created a blog specifically for this purpose). We don’t all live in the same place anymore, so this makes it easy for us to keep in touch with each other and still talk about the things we’re reading, which we’ve always loved to do. We’re just getting started, but the plan we’ve worked out so far is that we take turns picking a book to read each month, and then, on a designated day toward the end of the month, we all post our thoughts about the book, beginning with the person whose turn it was. Then we can comment on each other’s thoughts, recommend other books we’ve liked that were similar, etc.

My other book club was started by my sister-in-law, and we have monthly meetings which rotate between the different members’ homes. Instead of picking one book for everyone to read, we take turns picking a genre of books from which everyone picks something to read. For example, this month it was my turn, and I picked international authors/subjects—the book I chose to read is called Kabul Beauty School, by Deborah Rodriguez. Next Saturday we’ll all get together at my sister-in-law’s house and sit around the living room, taking turns telling about our books and what we thought of them. There are always snacks, usually provided by the person whose house we’re at, and my sister-in-law writes down a list of what everyone read and emails it to all the members after the meeting’s over (in case we want to check out something one of the other members recommended).

If you’ve never been a part of a book club, I’d suggest looking into it; you can do it any way you like, invite anyone you want, and read anything you want. You could read magazines if you wanted, or children’s books or travel books. It’ll give you something to look forward to each month, and I guarantee you’ll get to know your friends a little better, too. If you’d like to join a book club but don’t know people who’d be interested, try looking places like Provo Craigslist; I’ve seen a couple posted there, and if there aren’t any already listed you could list your own. Check with your church group and see if they have one, or if they’d be interested in setting one up–my mom’s LDS ward in Texas has a Relief Society book club.

The Orem library has book discussion group kits you can check out for six weeks. These usually include 12 copies of the book you choose, a booklet with information on the author, and possible discussion questions. The library also has book discussion groups occasionally–look at their website to find out when. The Provo library also has a mother/daughter book club.