Having held their two-person — plus listeners — book club this past summer, host Scott Tong and Here & Now’s go-to book expert, Traci Thomas of “The Stacks” podcast, discuss how to run a successful book club.
9 questions with Traci Thomas
You and I have other book clubs, and I want to run this observation by you. Typically, we let anybody who wants to jump in jump in. If certain people say they like or don’t like the book, I wonder if there’s a kind of social pressure to follow the leader, you know what I mean?
“Yeah, for sure. The first person who talks kind of sets the tone for the whole book club. One of the ways that I get around that with my book club is I ask questions that invite dissent. So I’ll say, ‘What did people think of the book, who loved it, who hated it?’ Or if we get off on a tangent, someone [says] how much they didn’t like the book, then I’ll follow up and say, ‘OK, who here really liked it?’ and kind of open it up, bring in that other opinion.”
And is it important to do that early, maybe write down all the points people want to make before people talk?
“Yes. When I kick off my book club, we always start in the same spot, which is, ‘What do people want to talk about today?’ And I write a little list of notes… It’s something that I can refer back to as the leader of the book club, because I run a book club that has a leader.. .And then I also open it up pretty quickly to, ‘What did we like? what we didn’t like?’ so that people have a space to share any opinion that kind of falls on that spectrum.”
And how do you make sure that everybody who wants to talk actually talks? My book club has people who are on the quieter side and yet can be really interesting when they do talk.
“I think there’s a few ways to do it. For my book club, I tell people, ‘I’m going to call on you if I don’t hear from you today. So, you should speak when you have something to say.’ I know a lot of people don’t like to be called on. It’s definitely giving second-grade teacher vibes. But the other thing you can do, which I always do at the end, is say, ‘Is there anything else we didn’t talk about that someone’s just dying to talk about?’ And almost always, the really quiet person in the corner will sort of speak up and have the most profound statement of the entire night.”
If somebody really doesn’t like the book, should they be obligated to finish it?
“No, I don’t think so. I think if you can articulate what it is that you didn’t like about the book, you should definitely stop and read something else. I think having that dissenting opinion is wonderful, and the reasons why you maybe quit the book or didn’t like the book leads to a lot of really great conversation. It might be, ‘I found the character was so annoying’ and that opens up someone else to say, ‘Well, actually what I related to about the character is X, Y, and Z.’ So sometimes having a really strong reaction to a book that is negative is as productive, if you will, as having a really positive reaction to a book.”
What about picking books? Our group tends to do it a year in advance; we pick 12. Sometimes we vote, one person brings 2 or 3, and kind of lobbies for them, and then we vote. Other times, we’ve had each person just pick one, and then we just do that. What do you suggest?
“It really depends on your book club. I do like the idea that everyone brings a book and everyone votes, and whichever book wins, wins. My aunt’s book club, they pick 3 themes for the year, and they read a book for that theme. So it’s a total of 4 books on one topic, but it rotates throughout the year. So you’re sort of doing these deep dives, and they curate it in a much more intentional way.
“I know there are book clubs that if you host, you get to pick the book. Or if you host, you pick 3 books and everybody else votes on that. I like the option of bringing a few and then voting, but I think there’s endless ways to do it. Even collecting a list as a book club, as a group, and kind of just working your way through it, or writing [down] all the books on the list and doing a random number generator and picking that way… I think they all work, [it] just depends on the vibe of your group.”
Do you think it’s important to read a book first before suggesting it to the book club?
“I do not think so. I think that is only important if you are Reese’s Book Club and you are trying to tell millions of people to read one book, and you want to option it into a film. I think otherwise, you could pick whatever.
“If you have sensitive material in a book and you have someone in your book club that you know is particularly sensitive to that material, it might be worth vetting. But I think generally, it’s OK to all kind of go in and say, ‘I heard about this book. It sounds really good. I want to read it. Let’s read it together.’ And if the group agrees, I think that’s totally fine.”
Do you think about what a good group size is, whether to invite new members, when it’s enough voices, and maybe you have to start a new group?
“I do think that you have to be careful of how big or how small the group gets, but I don’t know that there’s one set number. I think it does depend on how talkative the people are in your group. I think what’s more important is how well the group meshes, that there’s enough people that know each other, so it doesn’t feel like, ‘my random friend just showed up and nobody knows him,’ and it’s awkward, but that everybody sort of is welcoming and open.
“I don’t know if I would do a spinoff book club, like if our book club got too big, you know, ‘12 people we’re starting branch B.’ I don’t know that I would do that, but I think… life happens, right? People ebb and flow from their book club. Someone is in a busy season of their life, and they can’t come, and somebody else comes in and, you know, the next person moves out of town. So, I think, like most things in life that we deal with, it’s the ins and outs.”
For people who are considering starting a book club, do you need a certain number of people?
“My first ever book club that I ever did was just me and one other friend. We would pick a book that we both really wanted to read, and we would read it, and… once we both finished that, we would meet at Chipotle. And that’s what we did for a few years. It was just the two of us. I know couples who have book clubs with each other. So I think 2 people is fine, but I think ideally 5 or 6 would be a great place to start.
“And you can invite people from different parts of your life, if you’re trying to build community, or maybe it’s people who all have a common interest that you share, and your reading starts from that space. I think there are a lot of different ways to start and being intentional about how you’re coming together and why you’re coming together can really set your book club off on the right path.”
Traci, one last question about book clubs that have been around for a while, including the one I’m in. We’re friends, so there can be a lot of social catching up, versus getting to the book. And there are some people who want to be social and other people who want to get quickly to the book. How do you navigate that?
“I’m a mother of 5-year-old children, so I’m a big fan of the timer. I know it’s a little rigid, but I think setting a timer and saying, “We’re going to do pleasantries for the first 10, 15 minutes,” check in, set the timer, and that is your official start of your gathering. You do book club for, say, 45 minutes, and then the rest of the time you can hang out. If it goes over, it goes over. But having that sort of clear beginning and end to the actual book club will have people focusing on the book, and then you have time on either side to do whatever else you want to do.
“That being said, some people only want to go to book club to be social, and that’s totally fine. As long as the expectations are clear. I have a lot of friends who are in a book club, and they always say, ‘We’re in a book club, we never talk about the book. And everybody knows it. And that’s fine.’ So I think as long as you’re setting up expectations and sort of setting a clear ritual or something around the time that you talk about the book, I think that’s a wonderful way to do it.”
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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Emiko Tamagawa produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Tamagawa also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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