Teresa M. Caruso of San Diego, CA talks about her book club, "Reading Between the Wines." She reveals the one title that helped bring members closer together and why her group has been alive and kicking for six years and counting.

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 "Reading Between the Wines," and though a couple of members have come and gone, our core group has been in existence for six years.

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

A: We have 13 women in our group, and our ages range from 26 to 40-something!

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

A: We meet once a month at a member's home or at a restaurant.

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

A: Yes! We eat at our meetings, and our food varies from simple appetizers to full meals like lasagna. The host normally prepares the food and members bring refreshments, although members have been known to feel domestic and make a dish to share.

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

A: The host generally leads the discussion and members chime in with their thoughts and questions throughout the meeting. We have used reading guides in the past, especially if one of us has felt at a loss for questions that would lend themselves to worthy discussion.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A: Our book selections vary from bestsellers to historical to biographical to classic to light reading to...

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: Our members provide book suggestions and our selections are chosen by a group vote. Up until our last meeting, we would select books for the entire year, but we discovered that limited us, so we decided to choose books every two months, which will provide us the opportunity to read what may be the "gotta read --- here and now."

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

A: One book that stands out for us that we read about three years ago was The Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney. We think that book brought us closer together. We read it at a time when we were all experiencing life changes of some sort and the book helped us form a bond. Though the characters met for dinner rather than meeting to discuss books, the premise of the book and characters were very similar to our group.

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: Besides drinking wine during our meetings (hence the name of our book club), the conversations we have in between book questions help to keep things fun for us. We're able to catch up with each other's lives, children, spouses and significant others, and we talk about the latest gossip around town and in the entertainment world. We also try to do little things to keep our group meetings lively. For our October meeting, we dressed in costume as one of the characters in the book we read, Wicked, which we thought would be fun, as well as get us in the Halloween spirit. In December we normally don't discuss a book, but we get together for dinner. One year we invited our spouses/significant others, another we had a Secret Santa. We've also gotten together on a couple of occasions to see the movie version of a book we have read.

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

A: Keep the group open for change and discussion, and basically keep an open mind! Don't limit yourselves and read a variety of books.

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

A: I think the fact that we have been together for six years is noteworthy AND that we have enjoyed each other's company for all those years. Not only do we meet for the book club every month, we also get together outside of the book club for socializing with one another.

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