How to Start a Book Club With Friends: A First-Meeting Plan That Lasts

Those numbers come from librarians and the American Library Association, whose guide recommends 8 to 16 members and a monthly schedule (ALA). Below is a plan you can copy, plus a page-count table so you don't pick a book nobody can finish.

Step 1: Decide what kind of club it is

Groups fall apart most often when people expected different things. Settle these before you invite anyone, and tell people up front:

• Social or serious? The ALA suggests aiming "somewhere between highly social and seriously academic." A wine-and-catch-up night and a close-reading seminar attract different people.
• What you'll read. One genre (mysteries, memoirs, classics) or a rotating mix. A Winter Park Library librarian recommends being open about whether "fun" books are fair game (Winter Park Library).
• In person, online or both. Video calls make it easy for friends in different cities, which matters if your circle moves often.

Step 2: Invite people

Approach	How it works	Source
Friends of friends	Start with 2 or 3 friends; each invites 1 or 2 readers	Winter Park Library
Bigger circle	Invite 3 to 5 people and ask each to invite 3 or 4	Penguin Random House
Target size	8 to 16 members (ALA); split the group past 12 (Winter Park Library)	ALA; Winter Park Library

Why not just your three best friends? A club of three stops working the first month two people can't make it. Bringing in friends of friends also means new opinions, which is half the point.

Step 3: Hold a short planning meeting

Penguin Random House suggests a "pre-book" meeting before you read anything. Here's an agenda that fits in an hour:

1. Introductions if people don't all know each other (10 minutes).
2. Agree on the type of club from Step 1 (10 minutes).
3. Set the slot. A consistent day and time, such as "the second Monday at 7," so people can plan around it (Winter Park Library).
4. Pick a place. The ALA lists homes, clubhouses, public libraries, churches, local Ys and restaurants. Rotating homes spreads the hosting load.
5. Choose how books get picked (see Step 4), then vote on the first one from two or three options.
6. Pick a name and a group chat. The ALA suggests a name so the club has an identity, and a way to send monthly reminders.

Step 4: Choose books people will finish

The fastest way to lose members is a book that's too long for the gap between meetings. The librarian at Winter Park Library notes that a 1,000-page book probably isn't realistic for a monthly group, and suggests choosing books 2 to 3 months ahead so members can get library copies without long hold waits.

Here's our arithmetic for how many pages fit in four weeks. It uses the average adult reading speed for fiction, 260 words per minute, from a 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies, and assumes about 300 words per page. Slower readers, dense pages and non-fiction will land lower.

Reading time per day	Total in 4 weeks	About how many pages
10 minutes	280 minutes	240
20 minutes	560 minutes	485
30 minutes	840 minutes	730

If most of your members read 10 to 15 minutes a day, a 250- to 350-page book is a safe choice. Our guide on how long it takes to read a 300-page book has the full math.

How members get the books

Ask your library first. Some libraries now lend book club kits: Winter Park Library's kits come with 10 print copies of one title, a digital copy and a discussion packet with questions (Winter Park Library). Ask at your branch whether it offers something similar. Otherwise, choosing 2 to 3 months ahead gives everyone time to get on the hold list. The same librarian suggests not skipping older titles, since a book that was popular 10 to 15 years ago gives you an extra question: does it hold up?

Ways to pick, from the library and publisher guides:

• Take turns. Each member chooses one month.
• Vote from a short list at the end of each meeting.
• Use a theme for the year, such as award winners or books set in places you'd like to visit.
• Plan ahead. Penguin Random House suggests sending out a schedule for the rest of the year once the first book is chosen.

Memoirs are a good pick for mixed groups because everyone can talk about the writer's choices. If people argue about what counts, our explainer on memoir vs autobiography vs biography settles it.

Step 5: Run a good meeting

The Winter Park Library guide suggests bringing about 10 open-ended questions and letting the talk go where it goes; it isn't a quiz. Start with something easy, such as what the title means, then move to style, the narrator, characters, plot and setting. Publishers such as Penguin Random House post free reading guides with discussion questions for many of their books.

If you need starter questions, these work for almost any novel:

• What does the title mean now that you've finished?
• Which character would you most like to talk to, and what would you ask?
• Was there a moment you almost stopped reading? What kept you going?
• Did the ending feel earned?

A simple structure:

1. 10 to 15 minutes of catching up.
2. 45 to 60 minutes on the book.
3. 5 minutes to confirm the next date, host and book.

Share the jobs. The Winter Park guide suggests rotating the leader role (picking questions, sending reminders) so one person doesn't burn out, and asking members to say ahead of time when they can't come.

Keeping it going after month three

• Stick to the slot. The ALA's advice: once you choose a schedule, keep it.
• Keep a simple log of what you read and what people thought. The ALA suggests a club journal, which also helps new members catch up.
• Let people come without finishing. Say so out loud, or people skip the meeting instead.
• Make the host's job small. The Winter Park guide lists the host's job as confirming the place, snacks and book.
• Meet online when you need to. Penguin Random House points out that finding a time and place is one of the biggest problems for book clubs, and suggests video calls or an online group so members can join from anywhere (Penguin Random House).
• Change it up once a year. The Winter Park guide suggests a planning party or book exchange, watching a film adaptation together, or a guest speaker.
• Revisit the setup every few months. The Winter Park librarian recommends checking in on group size and how new members join.