Getting Started

Creating a Book Club in 5 simple steps:

1. Decide what kind of Book Club you want to start: is the purpose of your Book Club to read or to socialize? Do you want to read a specific genre, best-sellers, high literature, etc.?

2. Choose a setting: do you want to meet in someone’s home, in a public space, or in an online forum? How often do you want to meet? Once a month is the standard, but if you plan on reading longer books you may want to meet every 6 weeks. Hosting your Book Club online makes meeting easy and convenient for members wherever they may be. Newcastle Libraries have fantastic spaces to meet for a book club discussions!

3. Invite Your Members: the ideal size of a Book Club is between 6 and 12 members. A great way to gather a large diverse group is to invite 3 to 5 people and ask each of them to invite a friend.

4. Set up a pre-Book Club Meeting: gather everyone together to discuss the first book selection, the meeting place and time, how the Book Club will be run, and the goals for the Book Club. Bring one or two options for meeting times and the first book. Take a vote if you would like to have everyone involved in the decision making process.

5. Select your first book and send out a Meeting Schedule for the remainder of the year. Done!

Sign up your Book Club to a Newcastle Libraries Book Club membership to borrow our Book Club Kits (contains 10 copies) for 6 weeks. Create a membership in branch with one of our friendly library staff. We also have an amazing selection of eBooks & eAudiobooks tailored for book clubs. Check out Libby, BorrowBox, Cloud Library.