Every month, Regina Sinclair and the members of her book club, "Books R Us," congregate in the food court of a mall in St. Louis, MO. In this interview, Regina explains how a bad reading experience led to the creation of their "Dynamic Reading List" --- a list of books containing pertinent details such as summaries and number of pages --- and how it quickly became the preferred method by which the group's members make their reading choices.

Q: Does your group have a name and/or a theme? How long has your group been in existence?

A: Our book club, "Books R Us," doesn’t have a theme. We’ve been in existence since January 2007.


Q: How many members do you have? How many men, how many women? What age are most of your members?

A: We have nine members --- all women. Our members’ ages range from 40s to 70s.


Q: How often do you meet? Where do you meet?

A: We meet once per month in a quiet corner of the food court of a mall, which provides acceptable geographic accessibility for each of us.


Q: Do you eat at your meetings? What do you eat? Who brings the food?

A: Our members generally confine themselves to beverages at meetings.


Q: Who leads the discussion? Do you use reading group guides?

A: We take turns leading the discussion. Preference is given to whoever suggested that month’s title. We have made use of discussion guides found in the back of books and have relied infrequently on reading group guides.


Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: We read popular fiction as well as nonfiction.


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: The book selection for the next month is made at the end of each meeting from our "Dynamic Reading List," an annotated compilation of titles suggested by our members.


Q: What were some of the best discussions or favorite books the group read?

A: Some of our best discussions/favorite books include The Secret Life of Bees, The Glass Castle, Water for Elephants, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter and The Devil in the White City.


Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: Books R Us has two members who are consistently irreverent.


Q: What advice would you give to other reading groups?

A: Diversity (in age, race and social/economic background) among members promotes stimulating discussions and the sort of opportunities for enlargement that can result from exploring life beyond one’s personal comfort zone.

Inviting members at the beginning to share their reasons for joining the book club as well as expectations is an effective way to get in sync with each other.


Q: Do you have any horror stories, amusing anecdotes, or other special tales to tell?

A: The experience that led to the creation of Books R Us’s "Dynamic Reading List" is worth sharing. The final 15 minutes of each meeting is devoted to discussing possibilities, then deciding on the book to be read for our next monthly meeting. When we had no suggested titles from which to choose in June 2007, our members went upstairs to the mall bookstore. Determined to end our meeting on time, we hastily set out in all directions searching for a title on which we could all agree. After numerous quick huddles, a consensus was reached on a book with which none of us was familiar, written by a well-known author.

It turned out to be extremely boring. Everyone’s disappointment with our randomly selected book inspired an animated critical discussion of it and how little thought went into our choosing it. It was our determination not to repeat the experience that led to the creation of our "Dynamic Reading List." Books R Us members are invited to add to this annotated list of titles at any time. In addition to the titles and authors of books, it contains the date of publication, number of pages and several lines that either summarize what it is about or give the member's reason for wanting to read it. Availability in paperback is also noted. The book to be read the following month has been selected from this list at the end of each meeting ever since.

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