You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

As you all know, as of May, each of the chosen group read books will have a discussion leader assigned to help facilitate the discussion. The discussion leader will be the person who originally nominated the book, or someone who seconded their nomination if they do not wish to do it. The discussion leader will get a badge which states they lead the discussion.

How you lead the discussion is up to you. There is no right or wrong way of doing it. All we ask is that you read the book yourself, be there as a “buddy” for those reading by themselves at the beginning of the month and the end of the month (as well as in between), and ask questions to generate discussion.

The questions you ask are up to you. Here are a few things to consider:

1) Book Club style questions: There are various websites (litlovers) which have book club questions for specific books which you might like to draw from. Some authors and publishers also generate questions, some of which can be found on their websites and/or at the back of the book. Generally, I think it's best, if you do decide to use the book club questions, that you just throw one out at a time rather than having them all asked at the same time. Otherwise it can start to feel like a homework assignment. Ultimately, it's up to members whether they want to answer these questions or not.

2) Generic questions: These could apply to any book, for examples, check out the websites below:
Facilitating Discussions
Fiction Questions

3) Questions to expand: You could just ask questions off the back of someone's comment, for example, if someone just wrote “I really like the author's writing style”, the discussion leader might ask “What in particular did you like about the writing style? Can you give an example passage perhaps?” These questions I see as just helping to get someone who has commented perhaps minimally to expand on what they have said.

4) Extras: You might even want to include maps, photos, useful trivia, links etc that relate to the book, the characters, the setting, the author etc (obviously being mindful of spoilers).

Maybe you would like to use a combination of all of these. It is entirely up to you.

Upon discussing the changes (see thread), the consensus was that we liked discussing our reactions to characters, events, writing style, how we felt about various things in the book etc. Whilst book club style questions can be good at moving a stilted discussion along, just listing the questions at the beginning might have the opposite affect, with people only answering the questions rather than discussing the book generally. We wouldn't want to turn the discussions in to an English Literature-style analysis of the book. We all have different backgrounds, interests, strengths and weaknesses and I wouldn't want people to feel intimidated or made to feel stupid by overly complex questions. I guess what I'm saying is it's all about balance.

We don't want you to feel daunted at being a discussion leader, we want it to be an enjoyable experience for you and the others involved in the discussion. You won't be on your own, I will still be popping in on the threads and adding my two pennies worth and the other mods who take part in the discussions are bound to get stuck in too. And if you need any assistance, feel free to give me a shout.

Feel free to add links to resources below that you may stumble across which might help people to lead discussions.

Thanks for setting up this thread, Sarah. It's really helpful! Hopefully this will help to generate some good, active discussions going forward and will put people's minds at ease if they were concerned about leading a discussion. Having fun is the name of the game.

I've posted these here in the Group read section but ideas from the post above (and the links mentioned) can also be of assistance in buddy reads!

Great advice, Sarah. I wish I had been given all that advice years ago, before the first time I tried to lead a discussion.

Good explanation, Sarah. Great idea to have an extra badge as incentive too. :)

I have a couple websites that I use for questions ideas, I don't actually use them for discussions but that is what they are for:

http://www.litlovers.com/run-a-book-c...
http://www.wmlnj.org/bookclubkits/gen...
https://www.bookbrowse.com/bookclubs/...
https://mppl.org/books-movies-music/b...


And these ones just for fun, http://jezebel.com/5912354/15-thought...

"How come we're all like, no, "The Hunger Games" is a kid's book but Borges writes about an enchanted library and it's "magical realism?"" made me laugh.

As well as the Yellowtail comment. Yellowtail is our swill we export. I have never ever ever seen so much Yellowtail wine in my life as I have overseas the past month. So you should judge that person who brings it to Book Club!

Seriously though, great post Sarah and really helpful. I agree with Casceil, I wish I had seen a post like this years ago!

Thanks guys. I'm pleased it's of use. I'm all excited for May!

Rusalka wrote: As well as the Yellowtail comment. Yellowtail is our swill we export. I have never ever ever seen so much Yellowtail wine in my life as I have overseas the past month. So you should judge that person who brings it to Book Club!..."

I'd be more apt to bring Wolf Blass Yellow Label to book club meeting. I'd keep the Red Label or Black Label to selfishly drink for myself. Or do I need to switch my Australian wines? Which swill do you recommend?

Yes, I'd like to know which Australian swill is recommended as well! I often choose the Aussie wine on the wine list and I'm usually pretty happy with my choice. :)

Sarah, your post is very helpful, thanks!

Dawn. that link is so funny!

Oops. Sorry missed the question, Janice. Thanks Tasha.

Swill = bad. So we don't drink swill.

Wolf Blass is not bad. Never seen yellow label though. I say anything Aussie would be fine, besides Yellowtail. Big labels I would think you would see overseas that are always good are Brown Brothers, d'arenberg (these two would be my go to out of these), Tyrells, Penfolds.

We have heaps of small wineries that we would recommend but I don't know what the export markets in each country is. So hard to recommend. Wine is sometimes cheaper than water here (not hyperbole, it is. During our drought, we bought wine for $1.20 a bottle, water was $2.50 a bottle), so many winemakers in this place, so most stuff will be good.

Rusalka wrote: "Oops. Sorry missed the question, Janice. Thanks Tasha.

Swill = bad. So we don't drink swill.

Wolf Blass is not bad. Never seen yellow label though. I say anything Aussie would be fine, besides Y..."

Yeah, I knew swill was, well swill, and I was being tongue in cheek.

Yellow label is the cheap stuff. Maybe it's the stuff flogged off to the foreign market. We pay more for the red or black labels.

Janice wrote: "Yeah, I knew swill was, well swill, and I was being tongue in cheek."

Oh, sorry. I'm still used to explaining nearly everything I say! I nearly explained my Australianism to my Australian work mates today... oops.

I didn't know what swill was so your explanation helped me at least. ;)

I've had Penfolds before, thanks for the wine recs, Rusalka.

Rusalka wrote: "Janice wrote: "Yeah, I knew swill was, well swill, and I was being tongue in cheek."

Oh, sorry. I'm still used to explaining nearly everything I say! I nearly explained my Australianism to my Aust..."

LOL!

Now, if only I could get to my wine cupboard and wine glasses. They are blocked by my office furniture. I'm tempted to include wine & glasses in my insurance claim. Think it would fly?

So tired of living like a hoarder - going on 3 weeks now.

Totally! How have you not burrowed through yet? I'd claim it as "pain and suffering".

I managed to burrow through today. A friend stopped by and helped me move things enough to reach in and grab a couple of bottles and the wine. I feel all giggly and I've only had one glass of wine.

so I know I am a total geek but I don't mind "English-teacher" type questions but the questions at the back of books are often irritatingly lame.
But give me two glasses of wine and I'm happy as a clam.

Thanks for posting this! I am leading the January discussion and appreciate this very much :)

Have fun leading your first discussion Daph!

Peggy wrote: "Have fun leading your first discussion Daph!"

Thank you!!

Daph wrote: "Thanks for posting this! I am leading the January discussion and appreciate this very much :)"

No problems Daph. Glad you found it ok.