Book Club Information

Choosing a book

There are no hard and fast rules for a choice.

Usually it’s fiction, but not always.
Most people prefer a good story line but sometimes something “different” goes down well.
If it’s a thick book with lots of pages, someone (probably the webmaster) will still be reading it when we get to the club.
A good discussion is preferred to a unanimous approval or disapproval.
Most people dislike working through a list of Book Club discussion questions
Book Club books already chosen and reviewed are listed here.
Inspiration for book choices can be gained from the other lists here.

Meetings

Time structure:
19:20 - 19:30 gather and chat. Plus tea, coffee, juices, and sweet nibbles.
19:30 - 19:40 Admin
19:40 - 21:00 Book discussion
21:00 - onwards, open the wine, savoury nibbles, open wide the discussion

The meeting time is 19:30, other times are approximate.
It is traditional to take comments on the book in order round the group, clockwise from the person that introduces the book.

In terms of refreshments, the tradition is to have coffee / tea and something sweet while we review the book, and then things alcoholic and savoury once we have essentially finished the discussion on the book.

Scores on the doors

Like it or loathe it, we seem to be stuck with giving books a rating from:
1 star = dreadful
to
5 star = Wonderful.
This is normally undertaken with the assistance of alcohol, and half stars are allowed.

It should be noted that the club has never rated a book as 1 star.
Books have on occasion been so bad that no rating has been given.

Refreshments

Also on refreshments, it’s perfectly understood that a host will want to make people feel welcome, but with contributions it’s easy to overload the table and have stuff left over. We did try saving leftovers and taking them to the next meeting but the quantity seemed continually to expand and items started to go out of date, so our view is that no-one should feel obliged to take anything to a meeting.

So contributions in a nutshell: Take something by all means but don’t feel you have to, and don’t take too much.

If you wish to contribute, then the equivalent of a half bottle of wine and a small bag of nibbles per contributor is about right. Non-alcoholic drink is needed for the people in charge of vehicles.

Over the last few years the December meeting has taken on a party atmosphere and the above guidelines are completely irrelevant.