Mary Bass of Mesquite, TX is a member of her office reading group, The ELCAN Book Club. She and her co-workers meet during their lunch hour and utilize a creative and inclusive method to choose their books. In this interview, Mary explains how they decide on the frequency of their meetings, provides helpful advice on starting a corporate book club and talks about the group's very special "ghost" member.

Q: Does your group have a name and/or a theme? How long has your group been in existence?
A: The name of our group is The ELCAN Book Club, which was formed in September 2003.

Q: How many members do you have? How many men, how many women? What age are most of your members?
A:Our group is made up of seven members --- four men and three women. Most members are in their fifties.

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

A:We usually meet a couple of times a month, but the frequency of our meetings is predicated upon the length of the book we are currently reading, then decided upon by group consensus. For example: If a book is 200 to 300 pages, then we will usually take two weeks to read it; if a book is 300 to 400 pages, it could be --- according to group decision --- a three or four week reading time; if 400 to 500 pages, we usually will take four weeks to read. The club meets in a conference room at our work place.

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

A:Yes. Ours is a lunch-hour meeting, so each person brings their own food. Some members will "brown bag" their lunch, while others go out and get food from local restaurants.

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

A: Each discussion is moderated by the member who brought that particular book to the attention of the group. Reading group guides of one type or another are consistently used. Often, they are guides that have been found on the Internet; sometimes they are guides provided by the publishers; sometimes members write their own guides.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: Primarily, we read contemporary, mainstream fiction and the classics.

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: Each of the seven members of our group chooses a book, which makes up our "newest" reading list. When we reach the sixth book on this list, each member provides the title, author, synopsis and length of a book for his or her next selection to the club's administrator, who then collects all the data and sends the "new" list to all members by way of email so that we all have this information prior to reading our seventh book on the current list. Then, each of us votes on the order in which we'd like to read the new list of books. The administrator does the calculations, and this establishes the order in which the books on each list are read.

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

A: Some of our favorite books and thereby best discussions have been: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, Snow Falling On Cedars by David Guterson, and The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom.
Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: We maintain a casual atmosphere for all meetings and inject a lot of humor. We discuss each of our life experiences that mirror or parallel aspects of the books we read. Often, our discussion questions are very pointed so as to make each of us think more deeply.

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

A:We find ourselves in possession of two types of advice: general and corporate. The general is built by the understandable items we feel to be inherent in all good book clubs --- read the books, come to the meetings, do your part, and enjoy. Part of the admonition to enjoy is to be yourself in all ways; when the discussion is serious, when it is humorous, when it is personal. Sharing within all of these venues makes for good discussion experiences for all.   The corporate advice is the same as the general, but necessarily enlarged. First, the club must be sanctioned by the company and the division for which you work; in our case, ELCAN is the division, and The Raytheon Corporation is the company. Request that your book club be listed among all organizations existing within your work place. Spread the word about the club with periodic reminders. All should be welcome. Guidelines should be stated clearly. For example, our group decided not to read works of Romance or Science Fiction. Agree that all matters will be decided by majority vote. Always reserve meeting rooms ahead of time as well as any company-owned equipment. Start meetings on time and finish on time. Along with rousing discussions, add as much laughter as possible.

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

A:Though we didn't realize it at first, we became aware that all of the books on one of our lists had a common theme: death. Each book was very different in content and format, but each centered on dying, in a variety of ways. As we read through the seven books on that list, and then in the aftermath, we had quite a bit of amusement over it.

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

A:Yes. We have a "ghost" member, which may be unusual with most book clubs. She is the only one of us who is not a part of our workplace, but is the spouse of an employee. She attends each meeting "in spirit," otherwise known as by speaker phone. She has multiple chronic illnesses and lives by wheelchair assistance. Despite not being with us in person, she fully participates in all the discussions and endeavors of our club and often speaks of her enjoyment in being a member.

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