Book Club Training with Nancy Pearl

On September 20, I had the chance to go to a training on running library book clubs with the legendary Nancy Pearl. Back in my days at the Carroll County Public Library, I ran the Mount Airy Branch's Senior Book Club for several months; I never felt like I quite got the hang of it, so I was very interested to hear what she had to say.

Here are a few of the tidbits I gleaned that most stood out to me.

1) Some sample questions, which I wish I'd had back when I was doing these discussions. “Why did the author choose the title?” “What’s the lesson, and who learned it?” “What’s the overarching theme of the book?” “Who should the narrator have been?”

2) Although these are good starting questions, Nancy pointed out that the moderator doesn't have to have all the questions. She suggested asking each person in the group to come up with one questions; these can then be written down and placed in a hat and drawn at random to guide the flow of the discussion.

3) A good book club book should be complex or compelling enough to sustain discussion; simply being good or enjoyable aren't necessarily the right criteria to use. Nancy suggested books where the main character has a decision to make, books with ambiguous endings, or books with "elastic realism." When making lists of the books for the future, it's important to avoid choosing "twelve books by white women of a certain age," as she put it. Diversity in authorship can help ensure diversity of conversation.

What tips or tricks have helped you when working with book clubs?