Starting a neighbourhood reading group

Reading groups nearly always die for the same three reasons, and none of them is about books: the meetings are too frequent, the book is too long, and nobody knows who decides. These are organisational problems, and they are solved before you start — afterwards they turn into arguments.

This is a guide to the decisions to make on day one, in order of importance.

How many people

Between six and ten. Below six, two absences turn the meeting into coffee for three and the group loses momentum. Above ten, the conversation splits into huddles and the quieter people stop speaking altogether.

Expect actual attendance around sixty per cent of the membership: a group of eight puts five people round the table, which is exactly the number at which a single conversation can hold together.

How often

Once a month, always the same weekday — "first Thursday" works better than a shifting date, because it gets into people's diaries by itself. Fortnightly feels livelier and burns the group out within a quarter: it means a book every two weeks, which for anyone with a job and children is simply unrealistic. The people who cannot keep up stop coming, and the ones who stay feel guilty about it.

Skip the summer, and say so at the start rather than discovering it in July when nobody turns up.

Who picks the book

The question that sounds democratic — "what shall we read?" — sinks more groups than any other. A collective choice requires a discussion, the discussion requires everyone to hold an opinion about books they have not read, and the result is a compromise nobody is excited about.

Take turns. Each month one person chooses, and that person runs the meeting. The chooser has one obligation: to say why they chose it. Taking turns solves three problems at once — nobody argues about the choice, everyone brings their own taste, and the group reads things it would never have picked up otherwise, which is the entire point of a reading group.

Where to meet

The best venue is one that requires nobody to host: the local library (most have a small room and are glad to lend it), a café in the dead hours of the afternoon, a community centre, a church hall, a public garden in summer. Somebody's home works, but it introduces an obligation of reciprocity that becomes a weight after three months.

If the group forms among people who met online — exchanging books, for instance — the first meeting is in a public place, without exception.

The first meeting, half hour by half hour

1. First ten minutes: go round the names, with one sentence each about the last book you read. Not "introduce yourself": a precise question gets shy people talking, a vague one freezes them.
2. Then the rules, in two minutes: frequency, page limit, rotation of choice. Writing them down somewhere saves six future arguments.
3. Then pick who starts and fix the date of the second meeting before anyone stands up. A group that breaks up saying "we'll be in touch" has already ended.

Running a conversation that does not stall

Whoever is leading should not lecture: they should ask. Three questions that almost always work, in this order:

• "Whose side were you on while you read it?" — brings disagreement out immediately, which is what makes a discussion alive.
• "Was there a point where you stopped believing it?" — legitimises criticism and frees the people who struggled to finish.
• "What did it remind you of?" — moves the talk from reviews to people, and is almost always the moment the evening becomes good.

There is one social rule worth more than the rest: people who have not finished it come anyway, and say so out loud. A group that only welcomes those who finished the book loses half its members by Christmas.

The advantage of a neighbourhood group

A group made of people who live near each other has something online groups do not: it can circulate the same copy. If somebody already owns this month's book, the others need not buy it — and with rotating choice that happens often, because whoever chooses almost always chooses a book already on their own shelf.

This is where a reading group and a shared shelf lock together: six copies bought become one copy passed round six times. Over a year that is ten or twelve fewer books bought and as many more conversations.

In short

• Six to ten people, once a month, always the same weekday.
• One person chooses in rotation, and runs that meeting.
• Agree a page limit in advance: around 350.
• Public venue, nobody's home at the start.
• Fix the next date before anyone leaves the table.
• People who did not finish come anyway — say it out loud.