For ELLE's thirtieth anniversary, we're serving up weekly life hacks from 12 expert coaches. Our second expert of the year is Julie Goler,
a book club expert who curates monthly, 75-minute salons on titles
carefully selected to promote both an emotional journey and intellectual
conversation. (Some of her groups—which include celebrities, Hollywood execs, and stay-at-home moms alike—have been meeting for over a decade!) All this month on ELLE.com, Goler will give you the expert tools necessary to start a can't-miss meeting of your own.
Reading
groups are a terrific way to continue the learning process, but your
club should not be considered class, but rather an instrument for
discussion. At your first get together, try and discuss a
meaty-but-short story like Ernest Hemingway's "
Hills Like White Elephants" or Philip Roth's "
Defender of the Faith"
so that you have time to come up with a list of policies to which all
members agree to adhere. This is important because, as you add members
to your club along the way, everyone will be on the same page
(logistically speaking). Below, my eight commandments for starting a
successful book group
1. All group members shall agree to actually read the chosen book:
Sounds bizarre, I know, but just trust me on this one.
2. All books must have an intellectual or thought-provoking element to them:
There's nothing wrong with page-turners like
50 Shades of Grey, but I promise that Madame Bovary and Olive Kitteridge make for better company than Anastasia Steele.
3.
That said, all selections should be enjoyable. At least one
member—usually the facilitator of the meeting—shall have already read
and approved of the chosen novel.
4. Meetings shall take place on a designated night each month:
Unless
everyone in the entire group agrees, it is best not to change the
night. Meetings should take place whether all members can attend or not.
My meetings begin at 7:30 p.,., discussions commence promptly at 7:45
p.m., and the evening concludes at 9:00 p.m. Of course you can alter
this to suit your needs, but it is critical to have a precise time that
discussion begins or you will find yourself waiting for latecomers every
meeting.
5. Only one group member should be responsible for leading the discussion:
This
person may come up with focus points for discussion, do research on the
author, the time period, and/or larger issues discussed in the book. He
or she will generally know
just a little more about the book
than the others. He or she will also do his or her best to make sure
that all group members are involved in the discussion so that chat
doesn't get monopolized by one person. (Some groups go "leaderless," but
those are often the ones that hire me to come in and do triage.)
6. Groups shall rotate homes so that different members may host:
And
note: some members won't want to. (Maybe they feel their homes are too
small or there are too many dogs or kids.) No problem! Create an
environment in which members are encouraged to co-host. Hosts can share
the expenses, cooking, and the clean up (not to mention accolades for
their creative meals).
7. Food and wine shall always be served:
During
the very first meeting, the group should agree whether they would like
to have dinner or "munchies" meetings moving forward. If you settle on a
dinner meeting, it's a good idea to schedule the eating component
either before or after the discussion. Most of my groups like to meet
for theme dinners before discussion. If we're reading a book from the
Heartland, like Nickolas Butler's
Shotgun Lovesongs, it's a perfect excuse to serve macaroni and cheese with spiked lemonade. If we're reading
Madame Bovary,
the hostess might serve a spinach quiche with a French cheese board and
Champagne. All of my groups serve alcohol, usually wine, but some get
quite fancy with martinis or margaritas if the specialty drinks suit the
book we're reading.
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles for example, positively cries out for very dry martinis.
8. Allow time at the end of the meetings for information that is good for the group as a whole:
After
we've shut down the book chat, I usually call out, "Is there anything
that we all have to know about?" I like to recognize that book groups
are places where like-minded people can talk about the things they love
beyond
the novel. So, at the end of a meeting, I offer my own suggestions for
the best theater production in town, the must-see movie, or the
not-to-be-missed TV show. My groups say that they love this part almost
as much as our book group chats.
