Society & Culture & Entertainment Reading & Book Reviews

Book Clubs Online - Finding the Right Book Club For You

Do you find yourself wanting to join a book club but unable to find one close to your home? That doesn't need to be a problem anymore, there are now many book clubs online and you can find one that suits your own particular interests and reading style.
It's hard to define when the 'book club' as we know it was first established.
Certainly such phenomenons as Oprah's Book Club on TV and Karen Joy Fowler's novel, The Jane Austen Book Club have helped to popularise the notion of a group of people meeting together to discuss books that they have read.
Book clubs that meet in person have taken on two main ways of operating.
  • One is where each member will read a book of their choice and when they meet together each member will talk about the book they have read.
    Often members swap books that are of particular interest.
  • Other book clubs will nominate a book to be read prior to the next meeting, and when they meet up again the group focusses on discussing the book.
    Discussion can revolve around whether a person liked a book or not, what they think the author was trying to portray, what they learnt from the book as a whole or from individual characters.
But for book clubs online, having each member read the same book is the better option as it is easier to facilitate an online discussion if everyone is on the same topic.
Of course the dynamics of an online book club are quite different to a real world book club, for a start there's no great food and wine to share! But if everyone is on the same topic a forum discussion or comments on a blog post will be much easier to follow and add to.
The great thing about book clubs online is that you can 'shop' around for a group that suits your needs.
You may want to be in a group that are in the same situation as you, such as: retired, ex-pat's, men-only, mom's only or over 50's.
Also, you may be interested only in a particular genre such as mystery, crime, romance or biography.
Another factor to consider is how often the book club 'meets' and how quickly you will need to read the book.


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