Guest Post: In Praise of Book Clubs, Vol. 8

Petunia from the fabulous blog Educating Petunia is a homeschooling mom from California with an interesting book club. Here she talks about what makes it different.

My book group is not so typical.  I first saw the idea on the PBS Masterpiece site and knew I had to give it a try.  So four months ago I started a Book and Movie Group.  What we do is choose a book that has a movie associated with it.  We read our books on our own over the month, then we plan a Movie Night where the hostess makes the movie available to the group.  This is like a Mommy’s Night Out for most of us and can be a lot of fun.  Then we meet to discuss the book and the movie together.  Watching the movie is not a necessity but it does add more to the discussion.  We talk about what changes were made to the plot and how it affected the story.  Was the main message different for those changes or were they simply part of interpreting the written word into a visual forum?

The best meetings are the ones where the hostess creates a theme and plans a game and/or prizes that go with the book.  For Much Ado About Nothing we had a spring wedding theme, each member bringing wedding photos to share.  Persuasion lent itself to an English Tea very nicely.  One member wanted to have a chocolate tasting at her meeting so she chose Chocolat for the book.  And I always try to offer a door prize that encourages further reading, like bookmarks, journals, pocket-sized books of poetry.

Blogger Bio: I will have been married to my husband for 15 years this July.  I wasn’t much of a reader until 6 years ago when we got rid of the TV and started homeschooling our three kiddos.  I have found homeschooling to be as much as a learning experience for me as it is for them.  The classics are my favorite type of book and Edith Wharton is my favorite author.

***Would you like to share about your book club here at Books on the Brain?  If so, leave a comment and I will get in touch with you about a guest post!

For previous volumes of In Praise of Book Clubs, click HERE

For more info on starting your own book club, click HERE

For fun ways to make your book club better, click HERE

For a chance to win Springtime on Mars by Susan Woodring, click HERE and leave a comment by June 6.

5 Responses

  1. Petunia’s book club sounds like fun! I could get into the chocolate tasting. 😀

  2. What a clever idea for a book club!

  3. What a great idea! Maybe this can be the way to finally get my girls to start reading! A bunch of them are really into movies, so maybe the promise of comparing the movie to the book will lure them in. I think I’ll discuss it with them at the next book club meeting.

  4. What a cool idea! You guys should really read Memoirs of a Geisha – I felt that the movie was surprisingly as good as the book!

  5. Stephanie, I bought Memoirs of a Geisha after watching and loving the movie. It will soon be my turn to chose a book again so I may follow your suggestion.

    Lisa, thanks so much. I have enjoyed reading about other book groups and gleaning ideas.

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