This interview is with Pat Shepich from "The Book Club" of Troy, Michigan. Read on to learn more about this group.


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

A: We call ourselves "The Book Club", but we are trying to come up with another name. We have been meeting since October of 1996, so we are starting our seventh year.

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

A: We have between 10-12 members, all women, and most are teachers. We range in age from 40 to 80.

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

A: We meet the first Wednesday of the month, except in the summer.

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

A: We always eat at our meetings. In fact it is a very important part of our meeting, because we serve food that has to do with the locale of the book. It is prepared by the hostess.

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

A: We use discussion questions if they are available for the book, or we use a set of generic questions if none is available.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: We read mostly fiction, and try to include a classic every 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: In the past, we have had a discussion at our June meeting to pick books for the next year. This year we are trying something different. We each wrote down names of books that we would like to read, put them in a box, and the hostess drew out a book title that would be discussed when we met at her house.

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

A: Our best discussion was on The Grapes of Wrath. Other favorites were The Giver, The Persian Pickle Club, and Girl With a Pearl Earring.

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: Serving food that has to do with the book makes it fun. Some of our members have been very clever. For The Persian Pickle Club, the food was arranged like a quilt square; for Girl Friends, recipes were given to the hostess by girlfriends; for The Last Silk Dress, we had a formal tea party; and when we read Storyville, three of our members came dressed as hookers.

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

A: Read for fun. Don't expect a discussion that you had in a college lit class.

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

A: We play a game every December called Snoop. Everyone brings a book in a bag and, by playing a card game, you get to choose a book to take home. We have fun with it every year.

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

A: The daughter of one of our members has written a book. We met with her in August and discussed her book. It was great because we learned what authors go through from the beginning stages to the published book.

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