Is your book club feeling stale or uninspired? Has attendance dropped, or are you struggling to keep your patrons engaged? What you need is a reboot. “Book Club Reboot: 71 Creative Twists,” published by ALA Editions in cooperation with ALA’s Public Programs Office profiles dozens of successful book clubs across the country.
Its diverse cross-section of ideas will inspire you to rethink your reading groups and try out new ways to better meet your library’s and community’s needs. Drawn from responses collected through social media, electronic mailing lists, e-newsletters, websites, as well as the authors’ own research, this book by Sarah Ostman and Stephanie Saba:
- outlines the main reasons that traditional book clubs can grow stagnant over time and offers concrete advice on how to change things up;
- shares such real-world initiatives as a “walk and talk” book club, book clubs held in non-library spaces like ferries and bars, a discussion group for presidential history buffs, programming for people with developmental disabilities, a partnership with a health clinic network, and many others;
- includes programs from a wide range of library types (public, school, academic) and sizes;
- features short, easily scannable chapters that are convenient for browsing; and
- provides a handy list of resources for additional information.
Ostman is the communications manager in the American Library Association’s Public Programs Office, where she serves as editor of ProgrammingLibrarian.org, a web resource for library professionals. Before joining the ALA and the library field in 2014, she spent nearly a decade as a newspaper reporter, editor, and freelance writer.
Saba is a community program supervisor at San Mateo County Libraries in California. Over the last fifteen years, she has led book clubs in three different communities. She has also served on the ALSC’s Early Childhood Programs and Services Committee, the CLA’s California Young Reader Medal Committee, the ALSC’s Public Awareness Committee, and the ALA’s Public and Cultural Programs Advisory Committee.
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