Deborah Griffin is a member of “Local Bookies” in Cape Coral, FL, which was formed in April. In this interview, Deborah explains how incorporating authors’ biographical information further enhances their book discussions. As a relatively new group, she discusses her and her fellow members’ goals as they approach six months together as well as how they plan to celebrate their first anniversary.

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

A: Our group name is “Local Bookies” and we have been meeting since April 2008.

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

A: We have eight members, all women; half have known each other for a long time. Our age ranges from 40s to 60s.

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

A: We meet the first Tuesday of the month, either at one of our homes or a local restaurant. I prefer not meeting at restaurants since they are noisy, and unless it’s a round table you don’t really interact with the whole group.

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

A: We love to eat! Each member brings something, or, if the person hosting wishes to cook, we come hungry. Last month one member invited us to her home and cooked chili and others brought desert. This month will be wine and cheese, and each of us will bring something. Last month, in honor of our book selection, Sundays at Tiffany’s, we had ice cream sundaes --- YUM.

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

A: Someone always speaks up once we have had time to catch up on our time apart. We do use reading group guides and also share information about the author we are reading. We agreed to re-read To Kill a Mockingbird, and the info on Harper Lee was as interesting as the story.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: We like mystery and romance, but our group is dedicated to stretching our comfort zone reading various writing styles, topics and nonfiction. My hope is to read a great book of short stories and a profound biography. We’ve agreed not to read one author more than once as a group.

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: Choosing a book is not easy. We all have diverse interests; each person gets a turn choosing the next month’s book to read and we vote. We try to take a “heavy” topic book one month and offset it with a light mystery or romance novel the next. This month we are reading The Shack by William Young and Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. (Our group can’t meet until late in October, so we have six weeks for two books.)

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

A: Our whole group enjoyed Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Our best discussions are when we each like different sections for different reasons, as with Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I look forward to our meetings because we each have a different perspectives and viewpoints, and it’s enthralling to hear each person’s view. The diverse perspectives add more depth to the book.

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: We each wrote down three things we wished to accomplish within six months to a year and review them when we have our first annual anniversary meeting. We have agreed to celebrate our anniversary with a spa day, and one member invited us to sleep over, so we are looking forward to that date. We are going to do field trips to museums, theater, and restaurants that are focused on women.

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

A: Be sure to set a mission statement of what you want to accomplish and the group’s goals and time period, along with the type of books your group wants to read. Be flexible; give everyone a chance to share their point of view. Let there be enough room within the group to allow growth and change within. Do not make the meeting hard on the host or members to attend. Our first rule is, if some did not get the chance to read the book, the group would still discuss with those who had time to do so. The best icebreaker is to have each person tell the story of how he or she came to love reading books.

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

A: Thank goodness we don’t have any horror stories! Amusing anecdotes… I find it interesting that when we dine out, each has a glass of wine or two, but rarely has wine when we meet at someone’s house.

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

A: Yes, our group of book lovers is also growing into a group of women to trust, support and thrive within. The more we know each other, the more we share ourselves. The best is when we share our individual stories of how the subject or time period in the book affected our own life.

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