Not sure this has been asked, but my answer is yes.
I belong to three traditional book clubs and one non-traditional book club
I am the leader of one of the traditional ones. We all recommend books and put the titles in a hat and choose for the entire year.
Another traditional book club I belong to is online and we have a wonderful leader who chooses most of the books. We like them all.
My non-traditional book club is one at the library where we do NOT read the same book - we just tell what we have read and share books.
Happy Reading!!
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I belong to a traditional book club which I started 7 years ago. We meet monthly and each member takes a turn picking the “book of the month” according to a schedule I set up annually.
I also attend a book discussion series at a nearby library. The books are selected by the library director via our state’s Humanities Council book themes recommendations. I love this group. All are older women like me. The group is diverse and our discussions are stimulating, but always respectful.
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Sounds like two great groups that you belong to.
We didn’t have success with folks taking turns choosing a book so we went with the other method.
Thanks for your reply, Lana.
Initially we didn’t have a written schedule and I would ask members to pick a book or we would come to consensus on a current bestseller. It worked until we had a member join who would jump in ahead of everyone at every meeting with “suggestions”. She is also EXTREMELY conservative and often took offense with suggestions made by others, when they did manage to suggest something.
That’s when I decided something had to be done. I checked with two other original members and they agreed totally. I presented the change under the guise that we wanted to be sure that our quieter members had their needs met and that we as a club wanted to make sure that at least once a year each member chose a book she wanted to read. I also stated that all selections would be honored and none discouraged. We’ve been doing this since May and so far it has definitely helped.
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I belong to two bookclubs, BookBrowse online club and the Banned Bookclub at my library. Our leader at the library bookclub chooses our books each month. In November we read a long poem. December she will read a short children’s book to us and then we will discuss.
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Sounds perfect. Glad it is working.
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Sounds great!!
Thanks for your reply, Paula.
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I have been the discussion leader for a book group for over 25 years. Each December, members recommend books, and I choose our books for the next year from that list. This works well.
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I used to belong to three - a horror book club, a literary society where we share the best book(s) we read that month, and the online one I co-host for creative professionals. I’ve slacked this year on the first two but plan to get back to them in 2025. Book clubs are the best communities!
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Sounds unique - thanks for sharing and for your reply.
YES - book clubs are the communities!! 
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I belong to three bookclubs. Every member takes turn to bring three choices at the end of a book meeting and we vote on the book to read for next month discussion. One bookclub has seven members, the other one has eight members.
The third bookclub is with my three sisters. We meet on zoom because of the different location and we discuss books in French. We either take turn to pick books or each one of us select a book and we vote on the four selections. We are meeting 4-5 times/year.
I enjoy the three bookclubs even though some members of the 2nd bookclub do not finish reading the books before the discussion.
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They all sound like lovely books clubs and members.
We had a hard time with the voting so we resorted to assign the book a number and pull out of the hat. 
Most of our members read the books, but they aren’t too keen on recommending. Only two or three members suggest books.
Thanks for sharing.
Elizabeth
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I belong to a single book club at the moment as I want to have time to read not only our monthly book club selections but also things I select for myself.
As far as the selection process goes, I currently spearhead what we do and have tried to streamline things so that myself and one trusted other do the heavy lifting leaving the other club members to focus on making recommendations, pitching these, and voting.
Our selection process runs the month of April through mid-May in which we select books for the coming July through June months. This gives July’s discussion leader time to read/prepare for our July meeting.
The key steps for book club members are:
• Select 1-2 books by entering these into a Google form (club members have the full month of April to recommend. If we have <18 recommended books, we raise the maximum to 3 books)
• Review a compilation document with all the books, publish dates, # pages, genre, etc.
• Participate in a Zoom meeting to hear each person who recommended pitch their book (we use Zoom so the meeting can be recorded for those unable to attend and recording is made available afterward)
• Rank all recommended books from first choice to last choice using an online voting ballot configured on opavote.com; members just drag individual book titles into the desired order. The software uses rank choice voting to calculate the 12 selected books.
• Review the drafted meeting schedule and speakers and identify any conflicts/issues (scheduling generally puts shorter books in the months where lead-time before the meeting is 3-4 weeks; longer books are slotted in 5-6 week lead-time slots)
This may sound like a lot of work for members but it really falls upon myself and one other.
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Hey, @David_Kronman, I’m fascinated by your process! Seems like it could result in a really great selection of books. I’m very curious about which your club has read recently, and if you don’t mind, I’d love to hear more. How many members do you have?
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Thanks for your interest!
Here’s a link to our consolidated reading list for this year’s cycle (July 2024-June 2025)
link
Our mailing list is about 20-25 but active meeting attendees usually number around 15 people.
Fortunately, we seem to be having an influx of new people.
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That is our year cycle too - July to June.
Great on the mailing list and active attendees.
Thanks for sharing.
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Wow - I just looked at your link - impressive!!
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Same here - I’d like to hear more.
Great process.
My group wouldn’t do any of this, though, but so nice to know some groups are willing to offer suggestions.
Only me and one other person are the ones who offer suggestions and then some complain about the choices. LOL!! We would like to say: Why don’t you suggest, but we don’t.
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Thanks for the info, @David_Kronman! I’m very impressed as to how much thought your group has given to all this. Not to mention how much work you’ve put into details like providing detailed descriptions of the books.
Is this open to just your library members? Do you meet in person or over video (sorry if you’ve posted this already!). Anyway, I’m super impressed by your organization.
Thank you so much for that feedback. Our book club is open to anyone who is interested in joining…however, since we meet in person in our library, that would rule out those not in the area. Occasionally we do meet virtually (typically when there’s inclement weather or the discussion leader has an issue getting to the library). So virtual meetings are not typical. Our library can’t reserve the meeting space for us if we don’t meet there consistently and member consensus is that we meet in person. All that said, if you live somewhere in/around the Merrimack Valley in Massachusetts, we’d love to have you join us. Thanks again for the feedback!
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