Best thing since the Dewey Decimal System

Book clubs can be awesome. They offer a chance to get together with a bunch of people who geek out over poignant plots, flawed characters and unexpected climaxes. Book clubs can push you to actually get through a book before the movie comes out, and can pull you out of your comfort zone to explore a genre you’d otherwise never dream of digesting – a la The Hunger Games … young adult science fiction? Who knew?!?

On the other hand, book clubs can be a total drag. You might have to spend perfectly good money on a book that turns out to be a perfectly awful waste of time. There’s a possibility your club will judge the holy hell out of you if you force them to read a total bomb. And, seriously, what are the odds that all of your clubbers will actually find the time to hit the book store to buy the book before the next club meeting?

Trust me, the peeps at the Spokane County Library have heard every excuse in the book (ha!), which is why they created these amazing Book Discussions to Go! Each sturdy tote contains 10 copies of a book, usually there’s even a large print edition or book on CD in the mix. They throw in a folder filled with book club tips and discussion questions specific to your book to get the convo started. You can usually find about 20 different titles (there are more available on the library’s website ) on the Book Bag shelves – talk about a great way to narrow down your choices. And, with a little planning, patrons in good standing might be able to sweet talk a librarian into letting them check out a few titles to present to their club, and then return the other two once the club chooses the title they’d like to go with. You can also wiggle the due date a little, so if your club meets every 6 weeks, you can keep your chosen bag until after you meet.

When it was my turn to pitch a read to our club, I made a pit stop at the library and picked up three bags of books. At the end of our meetings we decide on the next month’s title, and during this portion of the night I pulled out my three big bags, ta-da! Everybody passed the books around and as a group we decided on the upcoming book. Then everyone went home with a free borrowed copy! How easy is that? When we convened to discuss the book we talked through some of the discussion questions provided by the library, then everybody dumped their copy back into the bag and I brought it all back to the library. Ta-da again! To be honest, the book we chose was a plotless disappointment (The Postmistress) but I felt absolutely no dread about making the group read a loser – the books were free and we’d decided as a group to read the stupid thing, so, really, ta-da!!!

Now, what were those “I don’t do book club” excuses you were yammering about?