ReadingGroupGuides.com interviews special reading groups around the world, spotlighting a different group each month. We hope that you enjoy reading about their experiences and might find some new ideas to try with your group. If you belong to a group that you think should be spotlighted, click here to answer our interview questions.

Meet The Bookworms from Carmel, Indiana. This group of women have discovered that the ties formed in a reading group can extend to every corner of their lives, and that their discussions are more fruitful when they don't invite their husbands! Many thanks to Cathi for talking about her group with us.

Q. Does your group have a name?
A. Our name is The Bookworms. We are from the Carmel, Indiana area.

Q.  How long has your group been in existence?
A.  Six years. Our first meeting, an organizational meeting, was in September 1994. There still are two of us in the group who were at that original meeting. Originally we were part of a Newcomers' Club. Soon we had friends who wanted to join the book group but not the Newcomers' Club, so we dropped our affiliation with Newcomers' and became a private group.

Q.  How many members do you have?  How many men, how many women?  What age are most of your members?
A.  There are eleven women members. Six of us have been in the group for at least four years. The other five are newer. There are no men, which is by choice. We invited our spouses to a December holiday get-together twice. We quickly learned that we did not feel we could talk as freely and we certainly did not feel that we could discuss any personal issues with men present. The men were present for our discussion about The General's Daughter and to this day we do not feel we had a very open discussion. Our members ages range from early 30s to early 60s.

Q.  How often do you meet? Where do you meet?
A.  We meet once a month, the fourth Thursday of each month, except in November and December when we meet earlier in the month. We usually meet at members' homes. December has always been open forum month--no book, and we go out to a nice restaurant for dinner. In December, we also each bring a wrapped, used paperback book for a book exchange.

At our last meeting, we decided that in 2001 we are going to go out more often, probably every other month. We are planning to go to Starbucks, the local Barnes & Noble café, and to different restaurants.

Q.  Do you eat at your meetings?
A.  The hostess provides the food and the beverages. It is up to each individual hostess to decide what she wants to do and whether she wants to serve snacks and dessert or make more of a meal. We have never done a theme evening. But when we discussed A Cup of Tea by Amy Ephron, I was the hostess and I had a tea party. I served tea sandwiches among other goodies and used every teapot I own as decorations. I also like to make recipes from Diane Mott Davidson's books when I am the hostess.

Q.  How do you choose your books?  Do you choose one new book at each meeting, or do you choose the books for a number of meetings ahead of time?
A.   We choose books by discussing what we have heard is good, what we have read and wish to share with the group, or a book we think would make for a good discussion. If we get too many books suggested, we do have a procedure so that we can vote, but so far we have not had to do so. We are very democratic and try to give everyone a turn at suggesting at least one book a year. We choose four to six books at a time. For instance, at our December dinner, we will choose a few books to start us off in the new year. In March or April, we will pick more books to bring us through the summer. In late summer we will round off the year. We try to make sure we get in a least one classic book and one biography or autobiography a year.

Q.  Who leads the discussion? Do you use reading group guides?
A.    The hostess leads the discussion. She starts off with a report about the author. There are times you can understand much more about a book when you know the author's background. After her report, the hostess starts the discussion, but we are so talkative, it doesn't take much to get us going. The hostess's next biggest job is to keep us on track. We have set aside a half-hour, 8-8:30, for book discussion only. If someone gets off track, it is up to the hostess, or another member, to get the discussion back to the book. We can socialize before 8 p.m. and after 8:30. We found we had to do this because some times we got so far off track, we actually ended up socializing more than discussing the book.

Q.  What kind of books do you read?
A.  All kinds. Several members commented that belonging to The Bookworms has encouraged us to read books of different genres and books by different authors than we normally would read. Twice we picked a famous person to read about. You could read any book about that person and then we discussed what we learned. The two people we picked were Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana. We will probably use this format again as it was very successful.

Q.  What were some of the best discussions or favorite books the group read?
A.  Several members felt that we had some excellent discussions about The Poisonwood Bible and Midwives.  Jean Deeds, a local author, came when we discussed her book There are Mountains to Climb.  Her presence made it such a memorable meeting for all of us.  One of our favorite books is Where The Heart Is and several of us went together to see the movie. Also, in the past couple of years, we have started to rate our books on a scale of one (lowest) to five (highest).

Q. Do you have any horror stories, amusing anecdotes, or other special tales to tell?
A.  Even though this incident happened several years ago, it has become part of our lore and we still laugh about it. It happened the evening we had our spouses join us to discuss The General's Daughter. A member, who has since left the group, had her deceased cat in a freezer because she could not decide where to bury him. At this point, the cat had been in the freezer for a couple years and most of us had forgotten about him. At our party, she was telling one of the husbands about her cat in the freezer. Hardly pausing for breath, she turned to another member and said, "Do you like those chicken wings? I found them in the freezer." "With the cat?" the second woman asked. "Well, the cat's double wrapped," the first woman replied. No one ate any more of the chicken wings.

Q. How do you keep things fun?
A. By making humor part of our lives.

Q. What advice would you give to other reading groups?
A.  Read for fun and enjoyment. Read a variety of subjects and do not be afraid to read books which are out of your normal preferred genre.

Q. Is there anything else unique or noteworthy about your group that you would like to share?
A. We are a potpourri of women with a range of interests. We are different ages and are at different stages of our lives. However, the essence of our group is our caring and support for one another. Even though we came together because of a shared love of books, we are more than just a book discussion group. We are also a therapy group. We have seen one another though marital problems, teenage problems, caring for aged/infirmed parents, cancer, the deaths of our beloved pets and job woes. Within our group, we can talk about our personal problems and know that we are going to get support, sympathy and advice from the other women. And when possible, the others will be there to help out. Last year when the lady with cancer was undergoing chemo, we arranged to give her a gift before the start of each chemo session, just to let her know we were thinking of her. A few weeks ago when I had to put my old poodle to sleep, that same woman came over to be with me and say goodbye to my pet. Even though most of us do not socialize outside of the book group, we all know we will be there if one of us needs help or support. This is a truly wonderful and unique group of women.