What activities does your book club enjoy, aside from reading and discussing books? While many groups stick to these basics, some who have the time and inclination take things a little further, whether that means extending their love for books to food, games and travel, or simply taking pleasure in being together in different settings. In our annual book club survey, we asked people about what their clubs like to do. Answers covered a variety of pastimes both inside and outside of regular book club meetings, book-related and otherwise.
Looking for ideas or inspiration to enhance your own group's time together? Just curious about what other book clubs do? Check out our summary of the results below.
Getting Out and Going Places
Many book club members say that their book groups enjoy outings, often with a cultural or food-related focus. Art galleries and museums proved to be popular destinations, as did movies, plays, restaurants and winery tours. Some clubs make these outings reading- or author-centered — attending writer talks, book festivals or other literary events — while others like to engage in different activities entirely. In some cases, groups go so far as to plan full vacations or weekend trips, either to visit book-related sites or just to get away together.
Specific events and places that subscribers mentioned include the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a Van Gogh exhibit, afternoon tea at a hotel, the L.A. Times Festival of Books and the homes of literary figures such as Edith Wharton, Mark Twain and Robert Frost. Some groups have traveled to settings that appear in books. One respondent's club went to New York's Morgan Library & Museum in connection with
The Personal Librarian; others had visited sites related to Frank Lloyd Wright after reading
Loving Frank.
Celebrating
Book groups also meet up to celebrate holidays, anniversaries or other events. Annual get-togethers are popular among our survey respondents' clubs, as is celebrating members' birthdays, and commemorating milestones like reading a certain number of books or being together for a certain number of years. Many clubs host gift or book exchanges at holiday or end-of-year events.
Volunteer and Community Work
A substantial number say that their group supports their local community or causes they care about; activities include donating books to a library, cooking at a women's shelter, supporting people in need and hosting speakers at book-related events. Additionally, many groups make a point of frequenting local businesses, such as restaurants and independent bookstores.
Enjoying Time Together in Other Ways
Getting together for a meal, a movie or just to socialize is an option that many enjoy. Groups may still connect these get-togethers to books in some way — watching a film adaptation of a book, playing games related to books, meeting for book-themed food or inviting an author to a meeting — but some opt to reserve time for unrelated activities, whether film, TV, current events or other subjects. Additional group activities that respondents enjoy doing together, whether book-focused or not, include coloring, cooking, knitting, painting and crafts.
We hope this inspires you to fill time with your book club in whatever way you like!
