Book clubs are a great way to meet new friends

Book clubs are a great way to meet new friends or keep in touch with old ones, while keeping up on your reading and participating in lively and intellectually stimulating discussions. If you’re interested in starting a book club, you should consider the following options and recommendations.

The first thing you’ll need are members. Before recruiting, think carefully about how many people you want to participate and also what the club’s focus will be. For example, some book clubs focus exclusively on fiction, others read nonfiction. Some are even more specific, focusing only on a particular genre such as mysteries, science fiction, or romance. Others have a more flexible and open focus. All of these possibilities can make for a great club, but it is important to decide on a focus at the outset so the guidelines will be clear to the group and prospective member. After setting the basic parameters, recruitment can begin. Notify friends and family, advertise in the local newspaper, and hang flyers on bulletin boards in local stores, colleges, libraries, and bookstores. When enough people express interest, schedule a kick-off meeting during which decisions will be made about specific guidelines that will ensure the club runs smoothly. This meeting will need to establish where the group will meet (rotating homes or a public venue such as a library or coffee shop); how often the group will meet, and on what day of the week and at what time; how long the meetings will be; how books will be chosen and by whom; who will lead the group (if anyone); and whether refreshments will be served and if so, who will supply them. By the end of this meeting, these guidelines should be set and a book selection and date for the first official meeting should be finalized. Planning and running a book club is not without challenges, but when a book club is run effectively, the experience can be extremely rewarding for everyone involved.summarize these into 1/3 ?​