“What’s the bitchiest thing you’ve ever done?”
A dozen members of my book club took turns revealing their nastiest moments after reading The Bitch in the House, a collection of essays about women’s anger edited by Cathi Hanauer. Who knew that mild-mannered Cindy had such a violent streak? For her confession, she won the club’s monthly prize, a lip gloss assortment inspired by the anthology’s cover drawing of a pair of red lips.
You don’t have to play truth-or-dare to get an inspired discussion going in book club, but it helps to have some framework or routine for getting the book talk started and keeping it on track. Every club needs to find what’s best for it, and sometimes it takes experimentation to find the right formula for your group.
Most commonly, the meeting’s hostess leads the discussion. This spreads out the burden and privilege of being leader for the night. Other groups have an ongoing designated or self-appointed discussion leader who relishes the role. Some small groups find that natural leaders arise during each meeting or they can focus without a single person taking charge. A book club leader should prevent a single speaker from dominating the discussion, keep the group on topic, and ensure things stay civil.
Some groups rely on reading group guides, lists of questions, or discussion points found on the Internet or in the back of many books. Other groups find these guides either too restrictive or too pedantic. You’ll find a full range of questions in reading guides, from: “What distinctions do you see between grief and mourning?” (Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking) to “What do you think Bridget looks like?” (Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding).
My book club has developed its own discussion ritual. Every member writes a question and puts it in a basket, then we pass the basket around the group and each member poses one question. This has several advantages: It makes everyone think a little more deeply about the book than they might if they knew they could just sit back and listen to the discussion. It also allows for anonymous questions. And, it takes some heat off the hostess.
Our questions can be heavy: “Would you ever under any circumstances give up your child like the father in The Memory Keeper’s Daughter? Or just fun: “Would Brad Pitt make a good Atticus in a To Kill a Mockingbird remake?” Our group also has a signature question, posed whenever appropriate: “Was X a good mother?” This one almost always leads to passionate discussions.
Here’s the final rule, which should apply to all groups where friends gather and drink wine: What happens in book club stays in book club. And that’s why I can’t tell you what Cindy did to win her bitch gloss.
