A: We call ourselves the Tiara Book Club and I have been a member for six years, although the group has been meeting for around nine years.

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

A: There are currently 10 members (all women) in our club. One member has moved to Columbus, OH and another to San Antonio, TX but we still consider them “Tiaras.” Most of the group is in the 50-something age range.

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

A: We meet monthly at a different member's home each time.

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

A: Of course there is food! Often, we tie the food into what we've been reading (Indian food when we discussed House of Sand and Fog; Texas sheet cake for Isaac's Storm; Greek food when we read Middlesex, etc.). The hostess provides simple appetizers and dessert for the meetings, and there is always wine (in fact, the group met on election night 2004 and I served Fat Bastard Wine --- we're mostly all Democrats…).

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

A: There is no designated “leader” --- everyone just jumps in with their two-cents worth. We often use reading group guides and especially appreciate the background information that generally accompanies them.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: We read EVERYTHING! We have done poetry, short stories, fiction and nonfiction, some sci-fi, some popular and some classics. Our group is very eclectic and everyone is involved with education in some way (college faculty, K-12 teachers and specialists, art museum and university staff, senior services coordinator).

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 don't have a very organized method of selecting books, I'm afraid. We do choose titles for a couple months at a time but often change our selections on the basis of availability (we try to stay away from bestsellers simply because some members of the group don't want to purchase hardcovers, and the reserve list is too long at the library!), time constraints, or even unfavorable reviews that we've read or heard. Many of our members are in multiple book clubs and bring titles to our group that they have read/discussed in their other groups.

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

A: Our benchmark is Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Our group members either loved it or hated it and the discussion was most interesting! Now, whenever a new member joins the group, our first question is always, “Have you read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and what did you think of it?” We try to keep the “haters” and “lovers” balanced so that neither group has a majority of members.

We recently each read a Nancy Drew book and then read Confessions of a Teen Sleuth by Chelsea Cain and discussed the differences between the old Nancy Drew persona and the new as portrayed by Cain.

We loved Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, and Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier (although we thought this was a rare example of the movie being better than the book).

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: We laugh a lot! And we try to “mix things up” by scheduling special events throughout the year. This past year we have met for dinner at a new out-of-town restaurant that a few members had been to and highly recommended. We visited our Columbus member up north at her parents' cottage on Black Lake (MI) and discussed Nancy Drew for three days. We have an annual August “Trailer Trash Book Club” get-together in South Haven (MI) where two of our members own upscale trailers on Lake Michigan (we usually discuss beach books at this meeting and share our favorites). We have a Christmas party in December that includes our spouses and is hosted by a different member each year. Last year we brought Christmas decorations to our hostess and decorated her house for her since she doesn't “do” Christmas --- and believe me, the decorations were tacky. We have attended movies based on books we have read together. During the summer, we refer to ourselves as the “Tiara Book and Golf Club” since we try to get together weekly for golf at local courses.

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

A: Make sure all your members are invested in the club --- there have been members in our group who simply don't show up on a regular basis, and that makes it difficult to bond as a group. Select new members carefully because even one person can change the whole tone of the group; you can usually tell after the first meeting whether someone is going to “mesh” or not. Make sure that no one feels intimidated or squelched --- everyone has a valuable contribution to make to the group. Thankfully in our group, everybody has an opinion and isn't afraid to share it!

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

A: One of our members was invited to the crème de la crème New Year's Eve party a couple years ago. This was the party to end all parties and was the talk of the city. The invitation process included a series of gifts that were sent to invitees in the months leading up to the party (bouquet of flowers, memory book, bottle of champagne…). One of the gifts was a faux diamond-studded tiara. Since the rest of us were feeling a little left out and envious, one of our members found similar tiaras at a local store and purchased enough of them to present to us at our annual Christmas party (very Sweet Potato Queens, no?).  Not too long after this event, the member who had given us the tiaras was diagnosed with kidney cancer and had to have a kidney removed. The Tiara Book Club went into action and set up a meal and visitation schedule for her once she was released from the hospital. We ran errands, cooked, did laundry, drove her son to appointments, and just simply sat and kept her company. Her husband had taken a job in Columbus, OH a few months prior and was commuting home to Kalamazoo (a five-hour drive) each weekend so she was alone during the week. 

What secured our “Tiara” moniker, however, was our initial visit to the hospital shortly after her surgery. We met in the hospital lobby, donned our tiaras and marched up to her room en masse. Since then, the tiara symbol has been a particularly poignant reminder of her surgery and the solidarity and strength of our group.

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

A: One of our members is a published poet and we have hosted a poetry reading at a local library that featured her work. We created flyers advertising the event, worked with the library to schedule and publicize the reading, invited two other poets to participate, and provided refreshments for the evening.