How to start a book club

Keep the group small

Five to eight people is a good size: enough for different opinions, few enough that everyone gets to speak. Start with friends or colleagues, and ask each of them to bring one more person. Mixing people who do not know each other well keeps discussions from turning into gossip.

Agree on how often and where

Once a month suits most groups. It leaves enough time to finish a book of ordinary length, even for busy people. Meet at someone’s home, in a café or online by video; online clubs let you invite friends who live elsewhere. Fix a regular day, such as the first Thursday of the month, so nobody has to coordinate calendars every time.

Choose books fairly

Some ways to pick that work:

• Take turns. Each member chooses in rotation.
• Vote. The host proposes three books, and the group picks one.
• A theme for the year. Books from different countries, debut novels, classics everyone skipped.

Keep the first few books short and readable. A 900-page classic in month one is how clubs end in month two.

Run the discussion

• Start with a simple round: what did everyone think, in one sentence?
• Move to open questions, not a summary: everyone has read the book. The guide to questions to ask about a book has a list that works for most books.
• Ask people to point to pages. A passage read aloud keeps the talk on the book.
• Let disagreement stand. Nobody needs to win.

Handle the people who did not finish

Someone will always be halfway through. Agree in advance whether endings are fair game, and keep the last part of the meeting for the ending, so that people who have not finished can decide whether to stay.

Prepare with Pagetime

Bring your own notes. In Pagetime, quotes and thoughts are saved with their book and page, and you can find them in the Notes tab by searching their text, the book or the author. A quote can be shared with the group chat as text or as a card.

The free version holds up to 5 books and includes 20 page scans with text recognition in total. Deleting a note does not restore a used scan. Notes and the timer work offline without an account; sync is free after signing in. A subscription removes the book and scan limits and unlocks your full stats history, year in review and folder export. Pagetime is coming to iPhone and Android; you can leave your email below to hear when it is available. Until then, send one message to three friends and suggest a book.

This independent guide is published by Pagetime and is not authorized, sponsored or endorsed by Apple Inc. or Google LLC.