A reading guide is simply a list of suggested topics for discussion, most often created by the publisher. Many books suitable for book clubs have reading guides - and a reading guide can be a good indicator of the book's suitability for discussion (i.e. the publisher has invested the time and money in creating a guide). But there are also many books that are very suitable for discussion that do not have available guides (and, for that matter, the availability of a guide is not a guarantee of a good discussion).
If you only pick books that are established book club favorites, the chances are you'll find a reading guide for most, if not all. But if you want to read more widely, maybe in genres that are less read by book clubs, or newly published books, you probably won't find a reading guide every time (oftentimes publishers will wait to publish the guide until the book publishes in paperback.)
Around a third of book clubs say that the availability of a reading guide is a factor in their decision about what to read (but just 1% say it's a must have). If the book you're going to discuss has a guide it's almost certainly worth looking through for topics that you think will interest your group. But what if there's no guide, or there is a guide but the topics just don't seem right for your group (occasionally reading guides veer too far to the simplistic, othertimes they can be so erudite as to be almost unintelligible in a discussion setting.) No problem! It's easy to come up with topics yourself!
Use the Topic Ideas list below to trigger your own ideas about the particular book you're reading. Aim for about 7-10 topics that you think will be good - but don't feel you have to use them all, if the group is happy exploring one particular area there's no need to move them on, and many discussions will naturally transition from one topic to another without you needing to inject a fresh topic.
Remember, you're only looking for a handful of discussion points, so you don't have to go through this list exhaustively. Instead, skim it for possible question areas that are relevant to the book you're going to discuss, and in just a few minutes you'll have a list of thought provoking questions specific to your particular book, ready for your book club meeting. You can type them out or just scribble on a bit of paper - they're your topics for your meeting, so do what is right for you.
Many of the most interesting book club discussions relate to the book but aren't necessarily about specific characters. We host regular book discussions on BookBrowse and usually the topics that get the most posts are those that relate to the book but allow people to bring their own life experience into the discussion. For example, one of most discussed topics in Quiet asked introverts about the challenges of working with extroverts, and vice versa; with The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks we had an engaged discussion on the ethics of medical research; and for When She Woke we had a vibrant discussion on the US prison population and when it is right to imprison someone.
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