Eileen Burgess is a member of “Great Expectations Book Club” in Mississauga, ON. In this interview, Eileen explains the group’s typical annual cycle, which includes a “year-end dinner” in June, a holiday party and a movie night. She also shares an amusing anecdote in which two books with similar titles caused some confusion for the group and its unsuspecting presenter.

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

A: We are called “Great Expectations Book Club” and have been meeting since 1995.

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

A: Right now we have 16 members, although usually 8-10 show up for any given meeting. We have one man and 15 women ages (about) 45-65.

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

A: This year we are meeting every month at each other’s home. Previously, we met every six weeks. This year we added a movie night (movie from a book that we’ve read).

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

A: Of course we eat! The host/hostess for the evening is responsible for the food, and although I try to encourage simplicity, our host/hostesses usually go to great lengths to have food corresponding to the book.

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

A: The presenter of the book is determined when we choose the books (never the host/hostess) and is responsible to give the group background on the author (if it is a new author to us) and keep the discussion going. We definitely use the reading group guides. It is a fabulous way of keeping the discussion going.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: We usually read fiction but have read biographic novels on occasion. We try to include a classic novel in our list for the year.

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: Our June meeting (which no one misses) is where we choose our books for the next year. It is our year-end dinner. All year I write down the name of a book when someone says they’ve heard of a great book. At the end of the year we usually have about 20-30 books to choose from. We then vote. We tally the votes to determine which 8 books we’re going to read the next year. I usually have our tentative dates available and we then determine who hosts and who presents.

It makes for some lively conversation over cocktails about the possible books and trying to convince someone else that we should pick the ones that we like. Between the main course and dessert we tally the votes, and over coffee we talk about who will host, etc.

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

A: Oh Golly! We loved To Kill a Mockingbird, My Sister’s Keeper, The Source and East of Eden.

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: Our host/hostesses keep it fun by trying to keep with the foods associated with the book. Our Christmas book has to be a “cosy” book because we have to arrive in our pj’s.

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

A: Relax and enjoy. I find that if we are too structured then people do not last. There is a fine line between too structured and too relaxed. Have fun with it.

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

A: We had one night when one of our members (the presenter) presented the wrong book. The rest of us were sitting there thinking she had lost her mind. The book had almost the same title as the one we were supposed to read.

Our lone male arrived at our Christmas book club party wearing a bunny suit. He didn’t think that we would appreciate him wearing his pj’s (he doesn’t wear any).

I would have to get some of the others to pass on stories.

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

A: There are three of us still from the founding group but most are members of long standing. At our year-end dinner, I also prepare “loot” bags for the book club.

© Copyright 2001-2009, ReadingGroupGuides.com. All rights reserved.

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.

Back to top.