Book Club Blues—spicing up a tired club

Dullsville. Has your club run out of gas? Stuck in a rut—doing the same-old, same-old? Take a look at a letter from our mailbag.

I have been a member of a book club for 12 years. Several of us have been talking and feel the group has become "stale." We've been doing the same thing year after year—and no one has any new ideas. Any suggestions on how we could shake things up?

Shaking things up often means forgetting about the book and stepping out of the pages. Or it might mean talking about books in a different way. Here are several ideas which any club could try, tired or not.

1. Come as You Are
   Like a come-as-you-are party, each member talks (briefly) about the book s/he's reading at the moment. (Don't assign a book for that month.) Or identify a unifying theme—families, coming of age, mystery, historical, etc.—and have members find their own books based on the theme to share with the group.
   
   
2. Film Night
   Devote a meeting to movies & popcorn. Have members bring their favorite film-adaptations and play a clip. If everyone shows up with The Help ... have each member pick out a favorite scene. Or watch a single movie in its entirety...and compare it with the book.
   
   
3. Read To the Elderly
   Make arrangements with a local nursing home to read to patients. Go as a group and fan out, each reading to someone different. Find light-hearted books like Irma Bombeck with short, humorous chapters. Even for stroke patients with little comprehension, the stimulation of hearing someone's voice can be helpful.
   
   
4. Auteur! Auteur!
   Write a book together. One of our Featured LitClubs started a "chain book"—each member built on a chapter from the previous writer. Be as silly or as irreverent as you want. Come up with a romance...a mystery...sci-fi...or combine a number of genres and see what comes out!
   
   
5. International Night
   Dispense with reading for a month and host a dinner to which members bring dishes from the different countries (or regions) represented in the books you've read over the years. Members might bring artifacts...music...photos...or some representation of the culture.
   
   
6. Costumes
   Have one meeting in which everyone comes dressed as a favorite character from any of the books you've read—or perhaps carrying some representative object. Members try to guess the identities of each other's characters...or not.
   
   
7. A Night On the Town
   See a film or stage play together. Visit a bookstore or spend an evening at a library prowling the stacks together. Attend a lecture if there's a locally sponsored author series. Just break the routine...and GET OUT of the house!
   
   
8. Arts & Crafts
   Perhaps there's a book which has some tie-in with an A&C project you could do together—origami cranes, for instance, for The Echo Maker. Or work together on a club scrapbook, each taking a page for one of the books you've read...or a specific year...or club event. There's nothing more fun than sitting around a table working together as a group.
   
   
9. Games & Icebreakers
   Do check out our literary games page...and check out some of our featured book clubs to see what they've done. Lots of good ideas.

 For any group that's gone a little flat, my advice is to take a break from reading every now and then. Do something completely different.