Feeling like your book club is in a bit of a rut? Wanting to bring back that spark your book club had in the beginning? Or maybe you feel like your book club is on the brink of disbanding? Maybe what you need are some book club ideas that will totally refresh and breathe new life into your book club!
I’ve been started and been apart of many book clubs over the years and I know sometimes it’s easy to get in a funk. At the current moment my book club in my new town is brand new so we are still working out the kinks and figuring out our groove and getting to know each other!
But I know it’s easy to get in a rut! All you some unique book club ideas for meetings and picking your book and what better time to do something about it than the new year!
Other book club posts:
– best book club books to read: an ultimate guide
– best short book club books (books under 300 pages)
– best YA book club books (for teens or adults!)
– best engaging non-fiction books for book club
– book club gift ideas
– how to find a book club to join
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Book Club Ideas To Refresh Your Book Club
Have A Theme For Each Month
I think themes are among the most fun and easy book club meeting ideas. There are so many ways you could go with this and I bet you could get really creative but here are some themed book club ideas:
- a different genre every month — maybe your book club gravitates to one type of genre in which this would be a great way to spice things up and read some different genres!
- read your way around the world with a different country or a different “type” of setting (city, beach, country, space etc.)
- read a book set or written in from a certain decade
- pick a different book award list for each month (Pulitzer, Printz, Edgar, Newbery, etc.) Also could count the Goodreads Awards winners if you want.
- themes within a genre — maybe you are a book club that reads a specific genre (a mystery book club, a fantasy/sci-fi book club etc)..how about picking a theme within the genre each month?
I could literally go on with more themed book club meeting ideas! THE SKY IS THE LIMIT!
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Have A Book Club Theme For The YEAR
Maybe this is the year of historical fiction for your book club or maybe you tackle classics or retellings! Maybe you read all books set in England or books set in your state — heck even invite some local authors to join you and talk about their book if you can! Maybe it’s the year of all red covers or the year of reading one author who has a massive backlist to choose from! Maybe this year you read books set in a certain century or decade? Tackle banned books! Read all women writers this year or all Latinx authors!
I don’t know…whatever floats your boat! Pick a theme and work your book club book ideas around that. It will be fun to try to find things to stay on your theme!
Read It & See It Book Club
Tackle some of the upcoming book to movie adaptations together and then watch them when they come out (or just book to movie adaptations in general).
This is one of the book club ideas that I’ve done a lot of though we weren’t exclusively book to movie books. One of my book clubs used to go do this quite often and I always loved discussing the book vs. the movie and if we liked the movie. It added such a great element to book club and it was fun to hang out together! We used to go to the movie tavern near us and it was so fun to eat, drink and watch the movie together.
You don’t even have to do the most recent set of book to movies — just pick 12 books that are movies and have a book club movie night at someone’s house if you are all close enough!
Have a “Books &_____” Club
This is one of my favorite book club ideas for fun meetings! Some inspiration:
- Book & Wine club — a different type of wine for every book club! Could be fun to also join a wine subscription!
- Book & Beer club — a fun way to try new beers!
- Book & Cookies club — would be fun to have a different type of cookie every meeting!
- Book & Craft club — maybe you talk about a book while you work on a craft or do something like knitting
- Book & Tea club — drink a new tea with your book! There’s nothing more cozy feeling than books & tea.
The sky is the limit here with this book club meeting idea! Particularly if you all have a similar interest like being wine snobs or loving to bake!
Tackle A Book List Together
Who doesn’t love a list to help narrow down what you read! It’s also one of the book club ideas that will also help narrow down your reading selection!
Maybe you all love Gilmore Girls and want to tackle Rory Gilmore’s book list? Maybe you want to tackle some of the books in the massively awesome (I own it, it’s awesome) 1000 Books To Read Before You Die book? Or BBC’s 100 books To Read Before You Die!
There are also these awesome Scratch Off book lists that would be fun to do as a book club!
100 Essential Novels
Work on the Popsugar reading challenge together
As a group, work on the list and pick your books according to one of the prompts for your monthly reading! And then add your own reading endeavors as a group to see if you can complete the challenge!
Check out the reading challenge over here!
A Year of Favorite Books
Fill your monthly meetings with favorite books of your members for the year! Each month a member would pick one of their favorite books (that the majority of you haven’t read) and share it with the book club. OBVIOUSLY this one might be hard for some to share your favorite book with the group and the possibility they don’t love your favorite like you do but I think if your book club is respectful it wouldn’t be a problem.
Follow along with a celebrity book club
Maybe you don’t want to pick the books you read for the year and want to follow along with a celebrity’s book club picks. My personal choice is the Reese Witherspoon book club — I’ve been reading most of them and MAAAAN she picks some great ones.
Other celebrity book clubs:
- Emma Roberts book club
- Zoella Book Club (I don’t think she did it for 2018 though but you could go through her past picks)
- Florence Welch’s book club
- Oprah’s Book Club (the OG celebrity book club!)
- Emma Watson’s book club
Match your menu with your book
Definitely a more advanced suggestion of all the book club ideas but a fun challenge, I think! If your book club is hosted at someone’s house, have a themed treat or drink based on the book or a detail from the book! If you don’t meet at someone’s home, maybe see if you can pick your month’s location based on SOMETHING from the book.
You could also have a really fun book club with this cocktails with a literary twist. Pick a book and make the cocktail that corresponds to it (or just work your way through them even if your book pick doesn’t correspond).
Don’t read the same book
I know, I know! What’s the point of a book club if you don’t read the same book?? But hear me out with this book club idea, maybe you have some meetings where you don’t read the same book but you come and talk about the books you read that month. You’ll get some book recommendations out of it, I’m sure! And maybe it will take some of the pressure off if you all seem to not be reading the books or jiving with the book selections you’ve had because of different tastes.
You could even make it a different theme to talk about every month — like this month we are talking historical fiction so come with one of your favorite historical fiction books or favorite beach reads.
I know this is might be the strangest of my book club ideas but I really think it could be fun! And really who says book club means you have to read the same book??
Read series together
What a fun way to tackle some series together! Pick a couple series that will fit within a 12 month time period and read one book from the series each month. It will be fun to go through that journey of a series together and to talk about it as a whole!
Change up your location
This is probably the simplest fix that sounds silly but I swear it will do wonders! At one time I was in 3 book clubs at the same time and we met at vastly different locations. I think my favorite was my book club that met at a tea room every month or two. It was such a special treat for me to look forward to every month. I’ve met at places like Starbucks/Panera. I’ve done in home book clubs with I LOVE that a lot if people are able to host and everyone can bring a little something. My current book club is meeting at a Mexican restaurants which I love margaritas with chips & salsa with my book talk but we’ve still yet to decide if that’s going to be our ~thing~ or if we will move it.
When it’s been nice out I’ve loved meeting outside! Find a good patio or a park and it totally feels like a whole new book club.
Change up how you pick your book club book selection
How are you currently picking your books? Is one person picking them or are you voting? Maybe switch up HOW you are currently picking the books you are reading to add a little life back to your book club. It’s okay to switch it up.
One of my book clubs started as an offshoot from a book club nationwide that had a reading list for each month but after a bit we decided as a group to just stop reading off the list provided and read our own thing which was a lot of fun because then we all started getting a month to pick the selection!
Bring A Friend
Maybe some members left or just need some personalities in the group who will add a new dynamic! Talk about it as a group and see if you want to add a person or two or three. The one book club I was in (and the one now is seeming to be) a new group every month. We always seem to have the same core people but there will always be a new member or a few that seemed to drop in that month and I notice it’s nice to have some fresh voices.
I hope these book club meeting ideas help you and your book club have new energy in the new year! It’s not always easy to maintain a book club but it’s always a rewarding experience and a good way to form friendships or nurture old ones!
What book club ideas would you add to this list? Tell me about your book club!!
Also, check out this list of must read new books to give you some inspiration!
Pin that book club inspiration
P.S. if you are reading this for some reason and aren’t in a book club — check out my guide for how to start a book club!
Liz says
My bookclub does the “match food to the read” and its been really fun, especially when you are reading historical fiction novels!
Jamie says
OMG I LOVE IT! Can I hear some of your selections/food pairings??/
Erica Robyn says
Wonderful ideas!!
Jamie says
Thank you!! <3
Cindy says
There is book club bingo that is a lot of fun!
It’s called book junkie bingo