In this interview, Kerry Reckard discusses her book club, "The Cosmo Guild," of McDonald, OH. Kerry describes how they choose their books, conduct their meetings and hold family get-togethers outside of their monthly gatherings. She also explains how they received an autographed copy of Honeymoon With My Brother and shares an amusing anecdote about three members who initially came to their meetings just for the food.

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

A: "The Cosmo Guild" --- it’s our 2-year anniversary.

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

A: There are 12 members in our group, all of whom are women around their 40s.

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

A: Once a month, at a member’s home.

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

A: Yes, we eat and drink. We eat whatever the hostess makes, sometimes according to the book.

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

A: The leader is last month’s hostess. Sometimes we use guides, but we have our certain questions we always ask.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: Any kind.

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 hostess for the following month’s meeting chooses the book.

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

A: Some of our favorite books are The Book Thief and Finding Noel, and our favorite discussions were from Peace Like A River and Life of Pi.

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: If a book is adapted into a movie, we will get together with our husbands and families to see it outside of the book club. We always celebrate our anniversary with games and questions from the year.

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

A: A group has already started because of us, and I told them the way that we choose books and to look on Amazon.com.

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

A: A husband of one of our members e-mailed the author of Honeymoon With My Brother, Franz Wisner, about his book and we got an autographed copy...that was fun.

Q: Is there anything else unique or noteworthy about your group that you would like to share?

A: We are all friends, with wonderful families!! Three of our members told us at the beginning that they were not readers, but just wanted to come to eat and clean up; those ladies have read every book and have been to every meeting! Also, we started to buy things for Christmas to donate to a women’s shelter!!

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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.

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