How to Organize the Perfect Book Club

How to organize the perfect book club….that’s a pretty tall title! Well, let me tell you I have witnessed it and count myself lucky enough to be a part of it! If you were ever thinking of being a part of a book club or maybe starting one of your own, this system is pretty fail-proof….and you will have a lot of fun along the way!

Where to start?

First, come up with a list of names of about 8-12 of your favorite people! Use this as an opportunity to not just invite your best friends, but maybe branch out into a group or a few peeps that you have been wanting to get to know better. OR think of those that you feel would really bring some awesome opinions (for better or worse!!) or ideas to the book club discussions. Yes….we are pitching this as an actual book club…not just an excuse to drink wine together. BUT there is always room for that, too!

Choose a date and send out an evite….this will help you track your peeps! Even if not everyone can come to the first book club, don’t count them out. Life is busy, and book club will and should run even if the entire group cannot attend every single session.

How do I choose the book?

Not sure which book to choose?? Yes, this feels like a lot of pressure. No problem! Make it easiest by choosing something off of a best seller list….or maybe a book that is currently being filmed and turned into a movies. People always like to read the book first and see if their images come to life on a big screen! For our inaugural book, our hostess chose The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah…..right off the New York Times Best Seller List!

host the first book club as a trial run

Host the first book club as a trial run. Keep things fun and light. Our hostess was brilliant and pre-divided out the food/drink responsibilities. Everyone typically wants to contribute something, and this offered clear guidelines, and no one showed up empty handed. It also took away some of the pressure from the host since she was already having us in her home and all that entails (cleaning, getting the kids to bed by someone else, floral, etc)

Our hostess had the cutest set up with flowers, a fun sign, and an appetizer of her own! The extra fun thing she did was have an area where we could all weigh in on whether we enjoyed the book or just thought it was “meh!” Winner, winner chicken dinner…we all loved the book!

Another brilliant tip, our hostess had pre-printed some engaging questions to keep the conversation going….not that we needed it with this book! Haha! It was great, and it led into other questions. Questions are easy to find on the internet, and then you can print them and cut them out! We each chose one, and it was so fun! We may have even become so lively that we woke up her children a time or two…whoops!

establish a schedule and assignments for future book meetings

Back to the trial run idea…see who is truly interested and who really wants to stick with it. Once that is established, ask each member to choose a month that she will host. Once the order is established, simply assign each person with a task (ie. appetizers, dessert, wine, salad, etc.). The following month, that list of responsibilities moves down by one spot, so each month you should be bringing a new item. You may repeat over the course of the year, but it keeps things fresh and different, and you get to try different tastes. If you are the hostess, you can also pick a food theme based on the location or theme of the book. Set in the hot south??? Think pimento cheese, crackers, and a pickled veggie platter as an idea! The appetizers should be enough to give a serving to every guest, plus the addition of 1-2 salads makes the combination an actual meal!

My first assignment was a dessert. While I am not a huge “sweets” person, I do love, love, love a good chocolate sea salt indulgence!! To me, Trader Joe’s has the best! And with it being summer, I didn’t want to serve anything too majorly heavy! So, I started with my Chocolate Sea Salt almonds, and then I added a little color with fresh, beautiful red strawberries. Well, hello! What goes well with strawberries but powdered sugar to dip them in!! And then I found these darling black/white tuxedo cookies also at Trader Joes! Yum, yum, yum!