BookBrowse interviews Joyce Thompson of Booksome Buddies chats with BookBrowse about her group. about all aspects of their book club.

Joyce Thompson of Booksome Buddies chats with BookBrowse about her group.

My thanks to you, Joyce, and to your book club membership for agreeing to chat with us.

Does your book club have a name, and if so, what is it?

We actually didn’t have a name until BookBrowse asked us for an interview. The group talked it over and we decided to call ourselves the Booksome Buddies.

What can you tell us about how the group got started?

I and another woman met at a Barnes & Noble in a book club that fell apart after 2 meetings. Over coffee, she and I decided that we knew enough people that might be interested in forming a book club. We asked, they responded. That was 25 years ago.

Our group is made up of about 10 women in the 60’s to 80’s age group. Since we’ve been together so long, most of us were working when the club began. We shifted from meeting at night to the daytime once everyone retired. It’s a well-educated group – many hold master’s degrees – but that’s not by design, it just worked out that way. We welcome anyone who loves to read. Some of us worked in various corporate positions, some have been teachers, some have been stay-at-home moms. We have a nice mix of perspectives, but we tend to be on the more liberal side of the political spectrum, and our religious beliefs are varied.

We’ve been through a lot together. We’ve gained members, lost members, but have had a nice core group that have been with us for the whole time or close to it.

Does your group focus on a specific type of book?

Not really. We are a group of like-minded women who love to read and like to be nudged out of our “comfort zone” occasionally. By reading books from all genres (except “fluff”), we have just enjoyed the ride.

What are your meetings like?

We meet once a month generally. A number of members are “snowbirds” so if we have particularly low attendance, we’ll skip a month in the summer. Our meetings are on Wednesdays at 1:00pm and generally last about 2 hours.

We’re in Florida. We used to meet at members’ houses, but when COVID-19 hit, we shifted to local parks and absolutely love it. There are exceptions (weather, holidays) but meeting outside has been wonderful.

I send out a list of discussion questions about a week before our meeting. I then print them and we take turns reading them and responding as a group. Often, other questions arise and we just treat them as part of the list of questions.

How do you find new members? Are you open to new members joining? If so, how would they do so?

We are absolutely open to new members and have even recruited from time to time. It is almost always by a current member asking a friend to join us. We have never advertised our group. We find that having that personal knowledge helps to avoid awkward situations down the road.

We do feel strongly about setting expectations for potential members before they decide to join. I created a “welcome letter” that helps them get an idea of what the group is like and what is expected of new members (basically talking about book selection and also stressing the importance of respecting others’ opinions).

Our one caveat is that new members have to be female. As a former instructor of adults, I can tell you that the dynamics of an all-female group are completely different from a mixed group. It’s not that one is better than the other, but in my experience women just talk more openly about feelings and ask questions more freely in an all-female group.

What are some of the books the group has read?

Well, as you can imagine, 25 years has yielded a lot of books. What I find most satisfying is that the ones that we least suspected of being a hit often spur the most discussion. We’ve read fiction, non-fiction, historical, scientific, social issues, you name it. But we are particularly careful to try and find books that we think might spark good conversation.

How do you pick your books?

We go through a very democratic and anonymous voting process approximately once a year. Each member submits three titles and a blurb to me. I create a ballot and ask each member to rank the list from the one book that they absolutely want to read, down to the one book they would not want to read. They rank all the titles and then send me back their ballots. I put the results in my magic spreadsheet and bring it back to the group. Invariably, there is a break in the numbers that allows us to cut off the list to about 10-12 titles.

We do prefer that a member reads a title before she submits it for consideration. We’ve been burned a few times by a book that “sounds good” in reviews but turns out to be a dud. It doesn’t guarantee that everyone will like the book, but it seems to help weed out unpopular titles. We have even wiped out a book mid-stream if enough members really can’t finish it.

We also try to be sensitive to the economics of reading. We don’t need to read the latest titles, and I always ask members to check availability at the local libraries. We’ve even adjusted the reading schedule of the list to accommodate books that might have a longer wait list.

I keep track of all the books we’ve read over the years. That way we don’t duplicate. It may seem small, but for newer members, they just don’t have the history so if they submit something we’ve read earlier, I can give them an opportunity to submit another title.

Do you feel your book club choices are evolving over time?

Not really. We’ve gone through some phases in the voting process a couple of times. We got overloaded on WW2 books one year, for example, so we decided to cut back on those for a bit. This time around we decided to include some “uplifting” titles given our current environment.

Are any of your members in other book clubs currently?

Yes, we have at least two members who are in multiple groups. One member is in three. She reported that one is centered on Bible readings and the other is more general like ours. The other women are in more general groups like ours as well.

Is there something in particular that makes your group special to you?

The friendships that have been formed over the years is a gift. Some of us play golf and travel together. We are respectful and caring to all members and it’s been a delight over the years.

Have you invited authors to visit? If so, tell us a little about that.

We’ve had two authors visit us. Both were brought by members who knew them personally. It was a great experience both times. They were very open to our questions and added additional background to the books we read.

Are there any tips that you’d like to pass on to others who might be thinking of starting a book group?

Trust is something that doesn’t get mentioned often, but we’ve found it’s really important. There have been lots of personal disclosures over the years and we have to trust that “what happens in book club, stays in book club.”