Q: "We recently gained a new book club member who is causing problems. She's only been to three meetings so far but she talks about herself non-stop. Every time someone makes a point about the book, she somehow relates it back to her life and tells a 10+ minute story. I've tried everything I can think - redirecting her back to the book, interrupting her, ignoring her but it's not working. She also puts people down, probably without meaning to, but still she does it. I don't think she has much of a social life outside of the club so I don't want to just tell her she can't come but she's ruining book club for the rest of the group at the moment so I need to do something. What is your advice?"
As you all know, we get a lot of book-related questions at BookBrowse. While we certainly have our own answers to these fascinating and excellent dilemmas, we love turning to our Facebook followers who always have the perfect answer - or answers! Here is their advice for addressing this sticky, tricky problem:
We used timer for a few meetings and the two members who talked on and on ... not always about the book, finally understood.