Starting a book club

[laurab]

Hey everyone! My husband and I made it! So far so good, we love Miami Beach! We have had very little contact with the mainland, but the beach is beautiful!

So we had a week to be on vacation and now we are starting real life. I am deep into the job search and decided to start a book club here.

If you want to join, please let me know and I will start a email list. Basically we will decide on one day a month (first monday, whatever) and the first meeting each person attending brings about four titles they are interested in. They introduce themselves and the books and then we all vote on the first four month's selection. No voting for your own:). I have done it with rules like one fiction, one non fiction, one sci fi etc but I think it just works better to to say four books, doesn't matter the genre.

After a couple months of getting to know that non of us are serial killers we can meet at our apts or houses with wine, cheese, pot luck kinda stuff, but the first few meetings should be at a public place. Ideas are welcome:)

LMK if anyone is interested!


Laura

[Luluu]

Laura,
I would love to be part of your book club. I am an avid reader, and belong to a book club up north also.

I have a standing commitment on Monday nights, but can make my schedule work on any other night.

What a great idea! By the way, I have been investigating my interests on Meetup.com, and you may want to start a meetup group for this club. The closest book club to where I live (South Beach) is in Coral Gables, which is not do-able for me since I do not have a car down here.

[laurab]

Awesome! Yeah, I should put it on meetup.com. I will try to do so tonight!

I will let you know the details of the first meeting soon. We can do it another night besides Monday, no problem:)

[Maria de los Angeles]

Hi gals! I moved your thread to the Community Center as this is where we usually post about meetups, groups and such.

I would love to be part of the book club but don't think time will allow with all the writing I do!

It would be great if you would keep us posted here on how it goes.

Great idea and I hope it goes really well!

[Luluu]

I think this might be better on the relocating and living forum, since I do not think that the community center board gets as much traffic.

[Maria de los Angeles]

Ironically, chances are the thread would get buried more quickly in Relocating and Living, so unless you keep it going, no one will see it closer to the top. This is a thread about starting a book club, so putting it under meetups is appropriate. People know to look here for that as it is defined on the main page.

The traffic question is not about which thread gets more, because if you don't keep the thread going, it will get buried. A thread like this will benefit more from searches probably. Miami Beach 411 ranks very high in Google. Laura's first post about starting a book club (a topic she mentioned in her moving thread) ranks number three in Google our of hundreds of thousands!!! This particular one probably hasn't been indexed yet.

In fact once you get the book club going, you could discuss the club under General Discussion or even Recreation. But as this thread is about organizing a group of people to meet, then it fits best under Community Center for now.

[Maria de los Angeles]

Hey gals, I think I mentioned this before in the other thread, but just a reminder that the Wolfsonian Museum on Washington Avenue has a book club.

[Mario]

I'd like to join a book club. Currently, on Tuesday and Wednesdays I'm not free until after 7:30 PM.

[Luluu]

I'd like to join a book club. Currently, on Tuesday and Wednesdays I'm not free until after 7:30 PM.

All the book clubs I know (including the one to which I belong up north) are female only. I will leave it to the original poster as to the composition of the group she wants.

[Michelle]

Hi Everyone, a book club sounds like a great idea! I love reading and talking about books that I may not have chosen myself. It helps open your mind :)

As far as who is allowed to join, Mario is an intelligent, well-educated, gentleman. If I was the original poster, I would be honored to have him as a participant.

[laurab]

Sounds great! Now we are finally getting near enough people to start. What happened to Sungal? THought you said you wanted to join? LMK, it will be a good time.

I will be in touch within the next week or so and we can start to decide on a date.

Laura

[Gus]

Laura, thanks for including everybody. =)

What book do you want to start with?

[laurab]

Well, I figured at the first meeting we will each bring a few suggestions and then we can nominate them and vote on the first 4 months...

that said, I picked up a new book called Miami Babylon by Gerald Posner and am currently about half way into it. Its a book about the history and makings of Miami Beach. Goes through the early days when it was just a sand bar, through the construction of it, the cuban migration, the anti semitism of early pioneers, the drug and crime years of the 1980s and I am guessing through 2008ish. Very interesting to someone like me who just moved here. Love seeing things like the Betsy Hotel was the Betsy Ross building and knowing a bit of info on who these streets are named after....

The book club probably shouldn't be just Miami books, but its an interesting read anyhow.

-laura

[Michelle]

Laura, I think it would be a great idea to start with Miami Babylon. Gus is already reading this book and I have been wanting to read it too.

What do you think?

[Maria de los Angeles]

I would love to read that book!

[laurab]

That sounds good to me! Lets do it! I would love to hear other's opinions and experiences with the topic. That would be helpful too in that then the first meeting we will already have a book to discuss. Unless anyone objects, I think we can go for it!

I should be finished with the book in about a week so if anyone wants to borrow it I would be happy to lend it out. LMK! -laura

[Luluu]

Hi Laura. I still think that you should set up a Meetup.com group, so that we get a broader group than just the 411 crowd. I have had good experiences with Meetup.com, and as far as I can tell, it is easy to set up.

[Luluu]

Hi Everyone, a book club sounds like a great idea! I love reading and talking about books that I may not have chosen myself. It helps open your mind :)

As far as who is allowed to join, Mario is an intelligent, well-educated, gentleman. If I was the original poster, I would be honored to have him as a participant.

Hi Michelle. I meant no offense at all towards Mario, as I know nothing about him and he seems perfectly nice! I just did not know whether it was going to be an all female club like the ones I have been part of previously.

[sungal]

Well, I figured at the first meeting we will each bring a few suggestions and then we can nominate them and vote on the first 4 months...

that said, I picked up a new book called Miami Babylon by Gerald Posner and am currently about half way into it. Its a book about the history and makings of Miami Beach. Goes through the early days when it was just a sand bar, through the construction of it, the cuban migration, the anti semitism of early pioneers, the drug and crime years of the 1980s and I am guessing through 2008ish. Very interesting to someone like me who just moved here. Love seeing things like the Betsy Hotel was the Betsy Ross building and knowing a bit of info on who these streets are named after....

The book club probably shouldn't be just Miami books, but its an interesting read anyhow.

-laura

Hi Laura,

That book sounds perfect! I'm in back in NJ now, and I'll be returning to Miami whenever I can, but not regularly enough to be a book club member. I'm coming back on Thursday but the weather forcast is not nice enough for reading on the beach :(

[Luluu]

Sungal, So have you left SoBe, and are moving back to NJ permanently? I am sure you will visit down here, but I am wondering whether you are going to be primarily living and working in NJ now.