3 Easy Steps To Start and Run A Book Club With Friends

How to start a book club with friends?

Step one: find friends who are willing to commit to the book club and who will be involved

The Reese Witherspoon Book Club is most notable for bringing people together through their love for literature and reading. Find inspo. for book club ideas/activities on virtual platforms such as Pinterest, Goodreads, and Tik Tok. There’s something special about starting a book club, and building community through one's love for literature. Finding willing and able participants is a great start for those interested in learning how to start a book club at school or how to start a book club online.   

Step two: as a group select the book that you would like to read 

When engaging in a book club online and starting a book club with friends, deciding which book to select can be a challenge. Our favorite online book club platform is Goodreads. Here's your personal book club invite to our book club 'Pot Liquor For The Soul.' We typically add books to a list and peek at other user's reviews for inspiration in order to determine if a book selection is the right fit. We happened to stumble upon our most recent book selection, ‘The House of Eve’ simply by searching “books for black girls” on Tik Tok. Keep an open mind when selecting attempting to select a book. 

Step three: Start a group chat! As you transition through the book use emojis and texts to document your reactions by chapter and to signify which chapters you've completed to the members of your book club. 

This approach adds new meaning to online book clubs. Often times, having to recap full chapters and find the words for your reactions can be tiring and take away from the experience. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Let the emojis do the talking. 

Within ‘Not Another Think Piece’ episode two, we discuss how we managed to engage in our first summer book club, and offered a book review of the novel 'The House of Eve.'

"38" signifies the chapter and the emojis are the person's reaction to the chapter. We found that utilizing text message reactions, gifs, and short responses worked best for our busy work and school schedules. This is by far the simplest book club guide and instruction to get started. 

Many people are now homebodies, simply because free third spaces are becoming obsolete, and most activities are expensive, involve drinking, or lack creativity. A book club via text is a great method to build and maintain community. 

Also, once we finished the book we hosted a book club picnic! We came together in person and debriefed about the novel overall. 

How to run a book club discussion?

When attempting to engage in a book club discussion with your friends, KISS. Keep it simple silly. Less is more when engaging in a book club discussion, because most times the conversation will go in many directions. As you read note themes, reactions, and thoughts. What questions are coming up for you as you are reading the chapter? What are you thoughts on particular characters? As you begin to discuss the book, ask your friends open-ended questions. This will allow the conversation to expand. Also, make predictions, but no spoilers! 

Lavar Burton would be proud! Reading is amazing and it's important to find ways to build community. It's especially important to find affordable activities to engage friends and maintain healthy friendships.

What friends are you willing to ask to join your book club? Which book would you want to read first and why?  

Happy reading!