59. How to Start a Book Club: The Ultimate Guide

Kate and Laura bring you a special episode on how to start and run a flourishing book club, from a variety of ways to get going to the pitfalls you’ll want to avoid. Packed full of inspiration from book clubs we’ve interviewed over the years, from a Proust Book Group in Paris to a book club dedicated to Jilly Cooper; from a Horror Book Club to a Walking Book Club, we've got it all covered and much more besides.

We've also come up with a top 10 recommended book club books that we think are guaranteed to get the debate flowing. What makes a good book club book? Listen in to find out, and you'll have all the tools you need to go off and select your own.

How to find the right book club books? Here are some of our recommended places to look: newspapers summer reading guides and end of year lists, in particular The Times and Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer and The Financial Times, The Washington Post and the New York Times; prizes The Booker Prize, The Booker International Prize (for books in translation), The Women's Prize, The Wainwright Prize (for nature writing), The Costa Book Awards, The Goldsmiths Prize (for books that open up new possibilities in the novel form), The Baillie Gifford Prize (for non-fiction), The Walter Scott Prize (for historical-fiction), in the US The National Book Award, the Pulitzer, Barack Obama's annual reading list, in Australia the Miles Franklin and the Stella Prize, and back in Europe Kate's favourite, The Dublin Literary Award (for books nominated by libraries around the world)

Get in touch and let us know about your book club. Drop us a line at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, follow us on Instagram and Facebook @bookclubreviewpodcast and on twitter @bookclubrvwpod. And finally if you enjoy the show do like and subscribe to us on iTunes, it helps other listeners find us, brings us great joy and delight and you'll never miss a new episode. Plus we've got an archive of 50 episodes full of bookish delights so do check them out if you haven't already.