How to start a book club for book lovers

Before you start a book club, you need to decide what kind you want to you have. There are several types of book clubs such as Non-Fiction, Classic Literature, Poetry, Genre Fiction (as a whole), Mysteries, Detective Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers, Legal Thrillers, Medical Thrillers, American Literature, Christian Literature, or any other type that might interest you and your members.

If you enjoy reading children's books or young adult books because you want to write those types of books, you might want to start a club where you read children's books or young adult books.

After you have chosen the type of book club you would like to start, your next step is to select the book that you and the group would like to read and discuss.

You also would want each member to have the same edition, which should be the most recent one, because it might be confusing if there are too many changes in previous editions.

After you have decided on the kind of book club, and you have chosen your book, your next step is to write down some discussion questions. If you want, you could write questions that would go along with any of the books in the Genre Fiction (crime fiction and the subgenres). For example, let's say you wanted to do a mystery book club. You could use the following questions:

Discussion Questions

1. What is the title of the book? Who wrote the book?

2. Who was the protagonist?

3. Who was the villain?

4. What crime did the villain commit?

5. What was his or her motive?

6. Who were the suspects?

7. What was the protagonist's goal?

8. What obstacles did the protagonist face?

9. What was the theme?

10. What did you think of the setting?

11. What did you think of the characters and how they were described?

12. What did you think of the narration and dialogue?

13. Were you satisfied with the ending?

14. Did the beginning grasp your attention? 

15. Did you want to continue reading the book?

16. Did you like the book? Why or why not?

17. Would you recommend the book?

18. What did you learn from reading the book?  

Normally, you would think of book clubs being held in a place where people could meet to read and discuss books, but you could meet online by starting a book club in a forum area. 

It would be a different way to have a book club, but it could benefit everyone. All the members could read the books they have chosen, and they could answer the discussion questions. Each member could also leave messages or questions for other members to read.

How to Start a Book Club : Book Club Discussion Guides