BOOK CLUBS

I have belonged to a book club for about 15 years. We meet approximately every six weeks to discuss a book that we have all just read. Most of our selections are contemporary fiction, but sometimes we select a memoir, set of short stories, biography, or title from the classics. Each one of us takes a turn nominating about three books for the following meeting, and after a discussion of the choices, the group votes.

Actually, I started the club with another woman. We each chose a woman we’d like to invite and then left it up to these women to invite others. Our goal was to end up with about twelve women who like to read. Otherwise we looked for diversity in age, ethnicity, and interests so that our discussions would be lively.

But now that I am an author, I am invited to go to book clubs to lead the discussion usually after the group has read one of my books or sometimes before. My Miriam bat Isaac books are set in Roman-occupied Alexandria (Egypt) during the first century of the Common Era, so I introduce the discussion with slides of the city as artists conceived it. The questions are lively, not just about the story or life in Roman Alexandria but how to get started as a writer and how to translate an idea into a marketable story. I am often amazed at the diversity of questions!

If you click here, you can check the recent past EVENTS on my website. You’ll see that I have visited many book clubs. For those I cannot comfortably travel to, I rely on the magic of technology to get there. Just email me: JuneTrop@live.com to ask about a visit or book a date. No charge, of course.