Three years ago, Heather Reason and her sister Jami decided to start a book club as a way of meeting new friends. Today, “Novels and Nibbles” in Dixon, IL, is comprised of 8-10 women who love to read and discuss. In this interview, Heather describes how a group of strangers became a strong group of friends that support each other during the good times as well as the bad.

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

A: Our group is called "Novels and Nibbles.” We've been together for about three years. My sister Jami and I both were living in the same area and were anxious to make some new friends. We started posting ads in places where we thought we would find women who were interested in books like we were, and that's how we came together.

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

A: We generally have about 8-10 members. Right now we have nine --- all women, by choice. Our ages range from 30s to 70s.

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

A: We meet once a month and all take turns hosting the meeting in our homes.

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

A: We do eat at our meetings. The hostess provides the food for each meeting. We eat mostly appetizer/dessert type items.

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

A: The hostess is the leader for that meeting. We often rely on reading group guides for our discussions. We find that they help us keep focused on the book and not get off on tangents.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: We read a variety of books, from novels to biographies to memoirs, 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: The hostess of the meeting gets to choose the book. We just decide one month at a time. We seem to stick to female authors, but it's not an actual requirement --- it just works out that way.

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

A: One of the best discussions we had was actually about a book most of us didn't like. It was The Time Traveler's Wife, a book that had had a lot of hype, but none of us felt it lived up to it.

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: Our eclectic selections and our ages/stages of lives in our group really keep things hopping. We've become a support group of sorts for each other. We've gone through births of children, deaths of parents, divorces, etc. We provide an escape for about two hours where we just get together and have fun.

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

A: Don't limit yourselves to one type of book or one type of author. Be open; you might not be crazy about everything you read, but you might just find a jewel.

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

A: At one point we'd read a couple of pretty "heavy" books in a row, so one of the ladies picked Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. A few months after we read it we found out it was coming out as a movie, so we all made a date and went to see the show together. We also had a few of our picks come out as TV movies, and we all watched them together as well.

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

A: I don't know if it's unique only to our group. We basically came together as a bunch of strangers not really sure what to expect, but we've ended up caring about each other and becoming a real group.

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