Book Club Experience: Ladies in READ

For my book club experience in Adult Readers Advisory, I chose to participate in and also observe the book club that I already attend at my library’s main branch in Greenfield, Indiana, called “Ladies in READ” (pronounced “red”). Even though we weren’t required to tell the book club that we were technically there as part of a class, I still let everyone know what I was up to so they wouldn’t think I was trying to be rude since I took notes on my phone during the meeting. (They already all know that I am studying for my MLIS and are very supportive!)

Ladies in READ is sponsored by the library, and it generally takes place in the library’s spacious community room where we can set up enough tables and chairs for everyone. While the community room is the normal meeting location, there have been a few times where the book club has met at the local Cracker Barrel instead so that the community room can be used for other purposes, such as voting season. Even though the Cracker Barrel is a fun, local meeting spot, I personally prefer meeting at the library because the room is quieter which makes it easier to have discussions. Additionally, snacks are definitely important at our book club and are provided if we do not meet at Cracker Barrel. For this specific meeting, we had candy, popcorn, water and soda.

The book club is led by one of my coworkers, although it is also kind of co-led by one of the other attendees, should my coworker not be able to make it to a meeting. There were about eight ladies at this specific meeting, and everyone except for one person actively participated and shared discussion equally. (The one person who didn’t participate as much was newer to the group, so I could understand that. I was more of an observer during my first book club meeting as well.) My coworker does a fantastic job of putting together the agendas for each book club session, and for this meeting, we had a page of discussion questions that we went through before watching a YouTube video of a discussion with the author.

As far as the questions, my coworker mainly moderates the discussion, but we are all free to add to or ask the questions as the meeting progresses and most of the questions avoid being the yes or no style. Since we all tend to ask questions, we don’t always stick to the script and only discuss the preprinted questions for the night, but that’s probably one of my favorite things about the book club! I enjoy being able to freely discuss the book without feeling tied down to the questions that are presented, and it makes the group a lot more fun because we never really know how things are going to go. If we are answering questions off of the discussion guide that we have for a meeting, either my coworker or our other leader will generally let everyone else answer before offering their own perspective on the question.

In terms of what we read, our book club is open to pretty much anything, but we gravitate towards reading thrillers, mysteries, and true crime (which are my personal favorites along with YA, so I can’t complain!). We also rotate who picks a book each month, and once someone chooses, they are taken out of the drawing until everyone else gets a chance to pick a book. Lately, the person who has chosen the book each month has been hating the selection, which is an interesting dynamic to face in a book club! Overall though, I’ve really enjoyed being able to be a part of Ladies in READ and think that the group will continue to grow over time. It has proven to be popular with our community in Hancock County, and I’m so excited to be a part of it!