Lorraine Molloy of Iselin, NJ shares with ReadingGroupGuides.com the ins and outs of her book club, the Iselin Reading Association (IRA). She stresses the importance of keeping meetings structured and orderly --- they've even devised a Question Basket to ensure that each member contributes to the discussion. These enthusiastic women still manage to have fun at their meetings through book-themed snacks and presents, field trips, and taking pictures for their IRA photo albums.

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

A: Our name is The Iselin Reading Association, and we've been in existence for two years.

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

A: We currently have 12 members, all women in the 40+ age group. (We started out with eight -- seven of whom are still members, and had as many as 16 at one point.)

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

A: We meet once a month and alternate meeting at different members' homes. We have held a few meetings at a restaurant, but that doesn't always work for a good discussion.

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

A: Absolutely! Since we usually meet on a Friday night, we started out ordering pizza and each member brings soda, wine, paper goods, and snacks or dessert. Lately, we've dropped the pizza and have been planning the food around the theme of the book, when possible. For example, we discussed The Kite Runnerat our last meeting and had various snacks and food from Afghanistan. When we read Barbara Delinsky's The Summer I Dared, someone made Julia Bechtel's Congo Bars.

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

A: The person who started our book club (who we refer to as "our President and Founder") usually leads the discussion, but everyone participates. All members bring questions for the discussion, and sometimes someone will bring a quiz. We've also used the reading group guides.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: All genres; we've read bestsellers, classics, science fiction, etc.

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: We usually choose one new book at each meeting, but we have gone through several ways of selecting them. First, our host for the month chose the book. Then, when we started having meetings in restaurants, everyone brought suggestions and we voted. When the restaurant meetings were becoming more of a social event than a book discussion, we began meeting each month at our president's house, and we alternated the voting for the next week, with everyone putting their suggestions in a basket and randomly picking one. During that time, every other month, the book was a particular genre --- biography, classic, mystery, science fiction, etc., which was also voted on by the group.

Our current method of selection is to randomly choose a member's name from a basket, and that person picks the next book of her choice, any genre. Her name is then removed from the basket, and we continue until everyone has chosen a book.

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

A: The Kite Runner, Life of Pi, Pride and Prejudice, The Reading Group, and A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: Everyone participates! Even if some members may not have much to add to the discussion at a particular meeting, they get a chance to have their voices heard by asking a question from the Question Basket that we pass around.

We also plan field trips and/or social events together --- we go to see a movie that was based on a book that we'd read. This year, we went out for a Holiday Brunch.

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

A: Keep to a routine --- structured, but have fun with it!

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

A: We used to communicate via email using "IRA BOOK CLUB" as the subject, but ended up changing it to "Reading Group" because of problems encountered with "IRA" as the subject.

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

A: Our president always has a little book-related gift for the members. For example, when we read Nicholas Sparks's The Notebook, we all got a mini-notebook. For Anita Shreve's The Pilot's Wife, we all got a toy airplane, and we each received a slab of real granite when we read A Prayer for Owen Meany!

At the end of each meeting we take a picture of the group holding a "thumbs up/thumbs down" sign. Everyone gets a print of the picture and has an "IRA Book Club" photo album to store them in.

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