The librarian who told me to skip the discussion questions - she was right

Last month at our book club meetup, the librarian who runs our group said we should stop using those printed discussion guides from the publisher. I thought she was crazy at first because I love having structured questions to fall back on. But she pointed out that those questions often make everyone give the same boring answers (like what was the author's intention here) and kill real conversation. So for our last book, which was The House in the Cerulean Sea, I decided to try her approach and just let people talk about whatever stood out to them. It was honestly the best discussion we have had in 2 years. People brought up things I never even noticed in the book and we ended up talking for 45 minutes past our normal end time. Has anyone else ditched the official questions and just let the conversation go where it wants?

2 comments

2 Comments

aliceg613d ago

The House in the Cerulean Sea is perfect for that kind of free talk though, it has so many little moments. I've done this with a few thriller books and it was a disaster, people just wanted to argue about the ending. But for something with a lot of heart like that one, dropping the questions sounds great. I might try it with my next book club pick, which is a memoir.

the_henry2d ago

Memoir could work well since those books are just one person’s story anyway, so nobody has to agree on what happened. We tried it with Educated a few months ago and people ended up sharing their own weird family stories instead of arguing. Let people talk a bit and see where it goes.