Reading Groups
Resources for Reading Groups
Reading groups have been a part of American life since colonial times. They will probably continue to pop up as long as books are published. Some reader somewhere will feel a keen impulse to share his/her excitement about a particular book – or with book-reading in general – with other readers, and eventually the critical mass necessary to form a reading group will again emerge.
Although it takes only two people to make a pact to read and discuss books together, most groups involve several individuals.
Luckily, there are several excellent handbooks on the market that can help steer a newborn or about-to-be-born reading group toward success.
Although you might want to scan the Amazon reviews for each of these titles before making a purchase – or tracking it down via your local public library – these resources are listed here in most-recently-published order:
- Beyond the Book: How to Start or Jumpstart a Book Club by Suzanne Colley and Kathleen Marsan. CreateSpace, 2014.
- The Book Club Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Reading Group Experience by Diana Loevy. Berkley, 2006.
- Good Books Lately: The One-Stop Resource for Book Groups and Other Greedy Readers by Ellen Moore and Kira Stevens. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2004.
- The Book Group Book: A Thoughtful Guide to Forming and Enjoying a Stimulating Book Discussion Group by Ellen Slezak. Chicago Review Press, 2000.
- The New York Public Library Guide to Reading Groups by Rollene Saal. Crown, 1995.
- The Reading Group Book: The Complete Guide to Starting and Sustaining a Reading Group by David Laskin and Holly Hughes. Plume, 1995.
- The Reading Group Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Start Your Own Book Club by Rachel W. Jacobsohn. Hyperion, 1994.
- What to Read: The Essential Guide for Reading Group Members and Other Book Lovers by Mickey Perlman. HarperPerennial, 1994.
On Reading Groups
“For most people, what is so painful about reading is that you read something and you don’t have anybody to share it with. In part what the book club opens up is that people can read a book and then have someone else to talk about it with. Then they see that a book can lead to the pleasure of conversation, that the solitary act of reading can actually be a part of the path to communion and community.” – bel hooks
Found at Reading is Fundamental via The Sky Like a Scallop Shell
Local Jane Austen Lovers Meeting Monthly
The next meeting of the Atlanta Chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America is June 12th at Agnes Scott College to discuss Sense and Sensibility.
Details about the meeting and the Society are available here.
FaceBook Changing the Face of Online Reading Groups?
Although many readers regard reading as a decidedly solitary activity and cherish their time alone with their books, others have found joining a local reading group also enjoyable.
And although most reading groups are decidedly local affairs, the Internet spawned more than a few online reading groups, where people who might not ever meet each other face-to-face can enthuse over books that widely separated members are reading simultaneously.
Fast forward to late 2008, when FaceBook – one of the largest and fastest-growing networks of Internet users on the planet – partnered with an independently-owned San Francisco-based firm to create FB’s Book Club feature.
Over 6,000 FB members have signed up since then – some to discuss books online, others just to harvest popular or enthusiastically-recommended titles. We don’t know for sure, but we guess the number of people participating in FB’s Book Club probably dwarfs the aggregate number of people participating in other online platforms dedicated to discussing books.
To find out more about FB’s reading group feature, you might want to first read this press release. Then, if you’re a FB member, search the network for the Book Club feature (an “application” in FB lingo).
And let us know how any experiment you do with FB’s Book Club goes!
Found at iLibrarian via the OPLIN4Cast
The Ultimate List of Reading Group Discussion Questions?
The New Yorker’s May 25th issue includes Ann Hodgman’s hilarious spoof of those sets of discussion questions that some of us in book groups use to foster discussion.
You can read Hodgman’s satirical essay here.
Atlanta’s 100-Year-Old Reading Club
Reading would be a lot less wonderful if we couldn’t share our discoveries and discuss them with other readers. Countless readers have joined organized reading groups to exploit this persistent urge to share with others our reading enthusiams.
Earlier this month, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a story about one such local group, distinctive because it’s been in existence for over a century now. Read the story.
Contributed by Ponce staffer Leticia Stinson
Atlanta Booklover's Blog 