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Top Five Techniques For Dealing With a Book Club Member Who Can't Stay on Topic

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:

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Had a similar problem. Leader said that everyone should have a chance to talk. In order for that to happen for the next discussion we would uses a timer... 10 min per member. ( Or divide the discussion time by number of members.)
We used timer for a few meetings and the two members who talked on and on ... not always about the book, finally understood.
# Posted By Joan M Mazzu | 8/3/13 8:03 AM
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