Q. Does your group have a name and/or a theme? How long has your group been in existence?
A. Our group, The Book Bimbos, have been together for three years. One of our members came up with the name based on the fact that we all said we'd be willing to read anything.
Q. How many members do you have?
A. We have eight members. We are four married couples who have been friends since college (about 8 years).
Q. Do you eat at your meetings? What do you eat? Who brings the food?
A. We eat like fiends! The host and hostess are responsible for the goodies. Our meetings are always after dinner, so food is usually snacks and desserts and veggie trays. No one really has to do a lot of cooking.
Q. Who leads the discussion? Do you use reading group guides?
A. We don't really have a discussion leader, though whoever picked the book generally starts the discussion off with what they liked or disliked about it. The rest of the conversation flows from there. On occasion we use reading guides, especially with books we think were more complex, just to make sure we've covered everything. It's up to the person who picked the book if they want to bring the reading guide with them or not.
Q. What kind of books do you read? 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. As our name implies, we read just about anything. We tend to shy away from bestselling mysteries and thrillers, as we've found they don't lend themselves to very deep discussions. Other than that, nothing is off limits. We read classics, general fiction, non-fiction, sci-fi and fantasy....we've even read a kids book (Charlotte's Web). We take turns choosing the books as couples. If a husband and wife can't agree, they each bring their book to the group and we put it to a vote. Ties are decided by a coin toss. We pick books about 2-3 months ahead of time.
Q. What were some of the best discussions or favorite books the group read?
A. Some of our best discussions have been AMERICAN PASTORAL by Philip Roth, THE CHESS GARDEN by Brooks Hansen, THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald (we all wanted to revisit this one from high school, and found we loved it all over again), ENDURING LOVE by Ian McEwan, UNDERWORLD by Don Delillo and THE EXECUTIONERS SONG by Norman Mailer, HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS by Daniel Goldhagen and IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS by Tim O'Brien. These last two led to some very heated discussions. I think we were all relieved when those evenings were over.
Q. How do you keep things fun? What advice would you give to other reading groups?
A. If nothing else, we always have fun. We've been friends for so long, we have so many inside jokes, it's amazing sometimes that the books get discussed at all! One thing that helps is that, since we are all friends and see each other a lot, we don't have to spend time each month catching up with each other. Now that some of us have children and pay babysitters, we're good at getting down to the discussion right away. As far as advice, we think groups should be open to reading all types of books. You never know what books might touch a nerve you never thought they'd reach. Also, if you decide to join a book group with your spouse, be sure that you're compatible readers. One of our couples buys two copies of each book, as they were constantly having arguments over his slow reading speed and her tendency to dog-ear the pages!
Q. Is there anything else unique or noteworthy about your group that you would like to share?
A. It's funny...when we started the group, we thought that our preference for books would fall along gender lines, but that hasn't proven to be the case. We especially enjoy the different perspectives that the men and women in our group bring to the discussions, and now that some of us our parents, we find that's also changing our views on things. We've also learned that you can't predict how each member will react to certain books. Some books strike chords in each of us that even our spouses can be surprised by. Our experience as a reading group has probably done more to strengthen our friendship than anything else we've been through together.
