Our interview this month is with the River Readers of rural Jacksonville, Oregon. Many thanks to Donna Epstein for sharing the experiences of her lively group with us!

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

A. We are the River Readers and we don't have a theme. Our nearest individually owned book store is about 32 miles away. One member was there trying to choose a book. The clerk asked if these 6 books were for a book discussion group, and since they were the clerk said "Give me the name of your group and we will give you a 10% discount." WOW! This was great, but we had no name. So Donis thought on her feet and came up with River Readers. We live rurally where two rivers run through our valley (Applegate River, Little and Upper Applegate River), hence...River Readers. We've been meeting for 2 years.

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

A. We are 6 women members, ages 52 through 65. We did not want a man in our group as we thought it would bring a dimension we did not want to deal with.

Q. How often and where do you meet? Do you eat at your meetings? What do you eat and who brings the food?

A. We meet once a month. We are very rural so we meet in each other's home. We do eat...mostly dessert. Sometimes we have wine and cheese. The hostess for the evening provides the food.

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

A. The woman who chooses the book leads the discussion and the rest of us keep our mouths zippered! We go around the room trying hard not to interrupt our fellow speaker, then we round robin.

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. We read all kinds of books, both fiction and non- fiction. How we choose our books is that next month it is my turn to host so this month I bring 7 books to the meeting. My fellow readers do not have a choice. This works so well for us. Before we were spending all our time on what to read.

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

A. Toni Morrison's SONG OF SOLOMON, Elizabeth Strout's AMY AND ISABELLE, Michael Cunningham's THE HOURS with Virginia Woolf's MRS. DALLOWAY, just to name a few.

Q. What advice would you give to other reading groups? How do you keep things fun?

A. Keeping the conversation honest. Don't take comments personally, remember that they are about the author and the content. Have fun by remembering your friends did not write this book!

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

A. One member is not too keen on reading about sex or other things of this nature and the book was AMY AND ISABELLE, which was distasteful to her. She "forgot" to show up, so we called her and said "You can't flake out!" She came --- it was great!

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

A. Our group is rural and sometimes we drive up to 7 miles through rain, snow and vivid sunshine to meet and discuss and share our feelings about an author's words.

ReadingGroupGuides.com interviews special reading groups around the world, spotlighting a different group each month. We hope that you enjoy reading about their experiences and might find some new ideas to try with your group. If you belong to a group that you think should be spotlighted, click here to answer our interview questions.