Phoenix Nights Book Club

I searched for ages for a Book Club to join and the only ones I managed to find out about were full i.e. they had more than enough members and weren't interested in any new ones! I realised I'd have to start one up, but how. Then I remembered my friends sister ran a successful one in London and I got her to email me the details of how she set hers up. Most of them run from members homes but as I was opening this up to people I didn't know (not knowing enough avid readers locally myself), that idea didn't appeal to me at all. So I hired a room in the local amdram Theatre and posted flyers wherever I could for weeks prior to the first meeting. My choice of venue proved to be inspirational as I got a lot of members from the Theatre and in turn I joined the Theatre Group and Film Club. That first meeting was last December and I think 10 people came to the first meeting, I'd laid on some wine, Schlor and cheese and brought along a couple of books as suggestions. We meet every month for 2 hours in the evening and have read 5 books so far with mixed reviews! But the Book Club isn't just about reading we talk about all sorts of things and new members join as others stop coming. Because we've all paid a yearly subscription the room is booked until the end of the year so it's not dependant on everyone turning up & there's always room for new members. I write a Newsletter to keep members informed that I send out by email. I'm so pleased I did this as it gives me immense pleasure and I've massively broadened my reading horizons, my latest 'fave' reads from the Book Club are: 'Winter in Madrid' by CJ Sansom and 'Perfume' by Patrick Suskind. My suggestion for the next read is 'A short history of tractors in Ukranian' by Maria Lewisky which I've already read and highly recommend as it's so funny and original.