ReadingGroupGuides.com - The Overdue Book Club Roundtable

The Overdue Book Club

Eve is the coordinator of “The Overdue Book Club” in Palm City, FL. In this interview, she discusses the importance of flexibility when selecting books and interacting with fellow members. She also shares some of the group’s favorite titles and explains the origin of the club’s name.

Q: Does your group have a name and/or a theme?

A: We have a name, but no theme. We are “The Overdue Book Club.”

Q: How long has your group been in existence?

A: I have been in this club for five years, but it was already established when I moved here.

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

A: We have about eight regulars and four to six "floaters." Florida is a snowbird state as well as a transient state. People come and go often, and I got my coordinator position when the previous coordinator moved to Texas. No boys are allowed --- all members are women. We range from mid-30s to almost 60.

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

A: We meet once per month the last Friday of the month, but we will bend that rule if it means a bigger turnout. We usually meet in members’ homes by volunteer.

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

A: We eat every single time. We typically have appetizers, desserts and sometimes a pizza! We all bring something to every meeting

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

A: As the coordinator, I absolve myself from actually running the meeting, haha. I will usually hand off a reading guide to another member to read aloud. If there is one available, we use it.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: We read mostly fiction, no specific kind (it could be historical, fantasy, it doesn't matter). We have read the occasional memoir.

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: We choose a book by member discussion, interest and/or recommendation. If we have a great number of recommendations, the list may go out months ahead, or if we are undecided, there may be just one month known at a time. It varies for sure. We also choose a secondary book for each month --- usually a smaller size, or just an easy-to-read book.

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

A: Outlander (we rearranged our entire scheduled list to read the sequel Dragonfly in Amber immediately!), A Land Remembered, Memoirs of a Geisha and The Red Tent (we read this twice!).

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: Wine! Last month we had a wine tasting in the hour before we discussed the book!

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

A: Be flexible about your book, your members and your meetings. Not everyone is going to love every book, not everyone is going to be the best of friends and not everyone can make it to every meeting.

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

A: We came to be known as “The Overdue Book Club” while I was writing the email to announce our host and location and such. We live in Florida and happen to be in an area that was hit hard with three hurricanes over 14 months. We missed meetings during those times, as we were all a bit too distracted to read. We even had to cancel once at the last minute because the traffic signals still had not been fixed yet, and getting together isn't supposed to be dangerous! By the time we were finally going to get together again, I began the email to everyone by inviting them to our "overdue book club meeting.”

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

A: I don't know that we are unique or noteworthy because this is the only book club I have ever been involved with. I love it, and I look forward to every meeting.

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