How to have a successful book group
What Not To Do: A few tried-and-true suggestions
1. When you're figuring out who to have in your group, don't if it's at all possible invite snooty literary types. I am not slamming people who really love really great-with-an-uppercase-g books, since that would include (and therefore preclude) yours truly. I am perhaps taking a gentle swipe at those worthy souls equipped with advanced degrees in literature. You might think they'd be perfect for an evening of hanging out with books. You might be dead wrong. Literary folk can be notoriously dull company when it comes to book groups, especially literary academics. They've read everything worth reading already, and they already know what they think of it, and now that they've published their thesis they're panting for a new audience for their theories. Or else all they want to read is obscure, bizarre works, because that's all they've got left unread on the shelf. Yugh.
2. Don't, don't, don't, for the love of God, even if you feel morally and ethically obligated to, invite anyone that you really don't want to have in the group, including relatives, friends, "friends," friends of friends, friends of relatives, or relatives of friends. Just don't, is all. You invited enough people like that to your wedding. Pick some people that you really like, or think you'd like if you could spend some time over books and baked goods with them.
3. Don't be afraid to ask non-readers to join the group. I mean, if they actually literally don't know how to read, okay, don't invite them. That could get painful and strange. But people who don't usually read for pleasure and are finally persuaded to give it a try are often the ones who (like a woman I know who swears she didn't get her first kiss until she was twenty-two) gleefully shout, "Why didn't anyone tell me?" at their first taste of the good stuff. One of the most devoted members of my own group is a woman who has a Master's in engineering but for years never read anything heavier than light contemporary fiction because all through school her teachers told her she wasn't smart enough for the real thing. She is now having a blast with Shakespeare, the Brontes, Dante, and anyone else we throw her way. She makes some of the sharpest and funniest comments of anyone in the group, and can be counted on to bring a bottle of port to meetings to liven things up a bit.
4. Don't have all the same kind of people in your group. You need a little variety to add some spice. A group of thoughtful, intelligent people with drastically different opinions on what constitutes good writing will lead naturally to the food fights and fisticuffs that help make up a really memorable book group evening. You may not be able to adhere perfectly to the platonic ideal of groups I describe elsewhere, but keep it in mind.
5. Once you've got the group together, do not (if you are in a position to do so) insist on reading something that a serious percentage of the group is dead-set against. Push limits, strive to broaden horizons, persuade if you can, blackmail if you must, but ultimately respect out-and-out hatreds. If you're having a hard time figuring out what to read, I can give you some ideas that have worked for me and for people I know.
6. On the other hand, don't be a patsy, either. If it's your group, your living room, your brownies (okay, my brownies), be a little dictatorial now and then. Take a stand. Choose the next title yourself if everyone's dithering, or at most offer a choice between two.
7. Don't join a public, all-are-welcome book group, especially one offered by a franchise book store. It sounds so perfect, doesn't it? You can go out and meet some new people, make some friends who like to read as much as you do, and you're in just the right place to buy the next book under discussion -- and maybe a few other titles, while you're there. Trust me, it doesn't work like that. Remember the old saying that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true? This is one of those cases. If you're feeling stalwart, you can read my true tale of woe; but if you're faint of heart, just take my word for it. Make your own group, join a friend's, or slip into the tub alone with a good read. Save going to the bookstore for that shopping spree you've been saving up for.
8. If it's your group, don't try to please everyone all the time. The day of the week, the time of day (or night), the title of the month, even the refreshments -- somebody's going to have some problem with something on the list. Do not kill yourself trying to make everything perfect for everyone. First of all, it's impossible, and second of all, no good deed goes unpunished and all your sincerely good-natured efforts will come back and bite you in the bootie.
9. Don't trash the current book, and don't let anyone else trash the book under discussion, because you don't like the author for whatever reason. Even a good reason. You can (and too often should) admire the work of someone with whom you'd never break bread because you'd be too busy trying to break his head. You have to be able to make the distinction between the writer and the work, because there is one. If you can't pull away from the personal flaws of the author long enough to be able to acknowledge the important contribution this writer's work and style may have made to the canon, you are, not to put too fine a point on it, a bubble-headed moron trying to disguise herself as a lofty seeker of higher ground.
10. If you lead the group, do not show your face at a meeting unless and until you've read the book. Even if it's not one you picked. Even if you really didn't want that title, not even a little. Even if you begged and pleaded not to have to read something so obviously awful, and offered up your firstborn child (existing or potential) in exchange for reading something, anything else, including untranslated works in languages you do not currently read or speak. Suck it up and read the damned book, already. People are counting on you.
11. If you don't lead the group, don't think that means you don't have to read unless you really feel like it. This is one of those really obvious, golden rule, what-if-everyone-acted-like-you-do unacceptables. Do not show up at meeting after meeting and explain that you were way too busy to get around to the book. Unless you belong to an exceptionally wealthy group, where everyone has nannies for the dog and servants to do chores you've never even heard of, everyone is going to rightly resent the implication that you are the only one with a life to get in the way of your lolling around reading all damned day.
12. Don't trash other people's opinions of the book in question, no matter how asinine and ill-informed they are. If somebody really has something just plain wrong -- for instance, I know someone who knew someone who thought that the protagonist in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour
13. If you serve my brownies once, don't use a different recipe, or worse yet store bought, next time. Trust me. Having had the best, these people are not going to settle for less.
14. If you don't serve my brownies, don't blame me if no one shows up for a second meeting.
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