Maria Bongiovanni of El Cajon, CA is the spokesperson for her book club, Swerdlow Lab. In this interview, Maria advocates conducting discussions with flexibility and open-mindedness, and explains why she and her fellow members look forward to each meeting every month. Read on to learn about some of the books the club has enjoyed, as well as a very interesting topic brought up during their discussion of WICKED.

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

A: Swerdlow Lab --- we've been in existence for about one year.

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

A: We have 8 to 10 members --- all women --- whose ages range from 22 to 49.

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

A: We meet once per month at the host's house.

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

A: Yes, we eat. It depends on the hostess; it could be hors d'oeuvres to full meals.

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

A: The hostess for the month leads the discussion. Yes, we use reading group guides.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: FictionBR>
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 select our books one month at a time. The hostess will choose the book based on ideas from bestsellers, word of mouth, and through Internet sites like Bookreporter.com and ReadingGroupGuides.com.

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

A: Wicked, The Time Traveler's Wife, and Memoirs of a Geisha.

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: We read questions from the reading guide, and we also will randomly ask more based on others' answers, or something someone read.

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

A: Don't try to stick to a schedule or only read questions from the guides. Be open to the way the conversation flows, even though it may be different from the questions on your page. If someone speaks out of turn, let it go, because he or she may say something that will make the next question more interesting.

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

A: When we read Wicked, one of the members of the group said she looked up "Bestiality" on the Internet, and then started talking about that and the conversation got really kinky.

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

A: We all get along and it is a lot of fun. It is also great to get away from the kids, husbands, and the house and just spend time with a bunch of women once a month

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