Kathy Roberts of Mokena, Illinois spoke about her book club R.E.A.D. (read. eat. and. discuss.). This eclectic group of men and women treat their meetings as not only a discussion forum, but a social event and use road trips and parties to keep things interesting. Read on to learn more about this club's unusual practices that once led to a member's clothing catching fire (she's ok!).

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

A: The name of our book club is R.E.A.D. (read. eat. and. discuss.), and we have been together since March of 2004.

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

A: The mailing list has approximately sixty members, and each meeting usually has between twelve to fifteen members in attendance. We have had meeting where there were forty five members in attendance. We only have a couple of men in the club, but we do welcome their participation. The women range from thirty to seventy years old, school teachers, nurses, housewives and professionals.

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

A: We meet once a month at a restaurant, but have had special meetings at venues such as the race track when we read "Seabiscuit" and the movie theatre when we chose to discuss "The Passion of the Christ" in place of the selected book for the month.

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

A: We treat the meetings not only as book club discussions, but as a social night out. We discuss the book over dinner and drinks, and over the past couple of years we have developed new friendships that keep many of the members around after the meeting.

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

A: When we have a large group, we divide into smaller groups and use the reading group guides. After a set amount of time we come together as one group and hear feedback and opinions from each group.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: We enjoy best sellers, historical fiction, biographies, American Classics (no old English).

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: At first, members brought in suggestions, and we just picked one, but since our group has become so large, we have gone to a form which the members fill out with their name, the name of the book and author, and why they wanted to read it.

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

A: The Red Tent, To Kill a Mockingbird, The DaVinci Code, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, My Sisters Keeper, ANgry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, Candle in the Darkness, Memiors of a Giesha, Devil in the White City

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: We do different things instead of just the discussions. Besides having dinner and drinks, we have parties and grab bags at Christmas, we go on "road trips (race track, movie theatre, and we are getting information regarding a book club cruise), and we have guest speakers.

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

A: Our advice would be to have a good time and respect others opinions.

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

A: At Christmas we had a candle light, and our servers' sweater caught on fire!

When we went to the racetrack after reading "Seabiscuit", the leader actually tried to discuss the book. When she looked up after reading one of the questions an saw that everyone's nose was buried in the racing form, she knew that she was wasting her time.We have had Lynn Austin, one of our favorite authors at the meetings. At the first meeting, we were discussing her characters, and she looked at us and said "you are talking about them like they are real people!" We told her that was a compliment to her.When we discussed the "DaVinci Code" we had a Catholic Priest run the meeting discussion. This summer our club participated in the Relay For Life. We ran a book sale at the race to raise additional money for Cancer Research.

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

A: Well, we started out having our meeting at a bar – is that noteworthy?

What is really fun about the group is the various ages and walks of life. Many of the books have touched someone's life in a special manner, and they share that with the group.

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