Stephanie Somers of Milan, Missouri talks about her book club, the Y-Nos. Their theme is Eat, Drink and be Merry --- and it appears they have no trouble remembering this during their meetings! Read on to learn more about this fun and diverse group of women.

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

A: We are the Y-Nos and our theme is Eat, Drink and be Merry! Our group has been in existence for approximately 6 months.

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

A: We have 12 members, who are all female, and the range of age is 30-60ish. We are diverse, and we like it that way.

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

A: We meet monthly, the last Monday of the month. We meet at members' homes, we rotate from month to month and we usually double up on hostessing obligations.

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

A: Oh yeah, we eat at our meetings. The hostesses of the evening decide on the menu and they are in charge of preparing the meal. What we eat varies, but you can be sure that there is always plenty of wine around the table.

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

A: Usually the person who recommends the book leads the group in discussion. We have from time to time used the reading guides; usually it is a starting point for our discussions. It is nice to have the questions to get the thoughts flowing.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: We read different types of books. However, when we started the book club, we decided that we would try to reach as many different types of books as possible, including autobiographies, fiction, nonfiction, etc. We have a couple of members who are really looking for an illicit novel, but we haven't quite found what they are looking for yet.

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: Members suggest books at each meeting and then we discuss what we would like to read for the next month. Eventually we reach a decision as a group.

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

A: Our most exciting discussion would have been about The Da Vinci Code and The Lovely Bones. Both of these books were very powerful and elicited quite a discussion. Those are the fun discussions, though!

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: When I asked the rest of the members this, they all looked at each other and all together they said..........WINE! We laugh about it, but actually for a lot of us, this is the only night during the month that we get to go out without our families and it is great to just be able to kick back and relax with our friends. A good glass of wine never hurt anyone anyway, right?

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

A: Keep it fun! We have so much fun at our meetings, it seems like we are always laughing so much that we are about to cry. It is great to just enjoy being around each other and having a common interest in a book that we have read.

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

A: It is interesting to see how a discussion can bring out certain things in people. When we were discussing The Lovely Bones, we were discussing how we would feel if someone hurt/murdered one of our children and one of our members quietly said, "I would kill him!" It was probably the most funny because she is a retired schoolteacher and a very mild-mannered person. We all got the biggest charge out of her comment. However, this same member brought a new twist to our discussion about The Secret Life of Bees. She had grown up in the Deep South during the timeframe of the book, and it was interesting to hear the stories she had about desegregation, etc.

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

A: Probably the most interesting is our diversity. Not only do our ages range dramatically, but also our careers. We have schoolteachers, a registered nurse, a real estate agent, a bank officer and even a few retirees. I think this diversity gives our group strength and it also adds to our discussions because of what we all bring to the table as far as our interpretations of the book go.

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