Wrap up the year with Book Chat
Posted by: Rebecca Vnuk
One of the things I like to do with my book discussion group is reserve the last meeting of the year for our annual “Book Chat”. This is an unstructured discussion that is open to anyone, where the participants come ready to talk about their favortite books of the year. There are many pluses to hosting a book chat versus a regular title-specific discussion:
- Anyone can come, whether they consider themselves a “member” or not
- It takes the pressure off of people at the end of the year/holiday time
- Participants leave with a list of book recommendations
- People LOVE to talk about what they are reading
- It often gives several ideas of books that might make a good discussion for the next year.
The Oak Park (Illinois) Public Library takes this idea one step further, with their Oak Park Readers, a “book lovers’ appreciation society”. Every few months, they hold a Book Chat, or “party”. For libraries without a structured book club, perhaps this might be a good way to gauge interest, or, simply some easy book-centered programming.
July 20th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
[...] casual “Book Chat” (which would be a nice tie in to a Summer Reading program). See this post from last fall regarding book chat programs. Leave a comment and let us know! I’d love to hear what groups do for the [...]
September 21st, 2010 at 5:46 am
[...] Other members of the group may (or may not) be interested in what everyone is reading. In most of the groups I’ve participated in, people end up chatting about other books while we’re waiting for the discussion to start, or while things are winding down. In fact, in the last group I moderated, this is what spurred me to have our end of the year discussion be a “Book Chat”. [...]