Hosting a book club meeting in April for the first time!

by Karen

I am hosting my first book club meeting in April for our Woman's Club. Our book club runs a little differently in that we do not all read the same book. Several members will share their review of a book they have chosen to read to the rest of the group.

Therefore, I cannot base the book club theme on a book. I was thinking of a Spring theme or a reading theme. I am a good cook but not very creative with favors, decorations, presentation, etc. To my knowledge, our members usually do finger foods and desserts and to date, no one has created a theme night. I thought it would be fun to do so.

Any ideas?

Answer

I think you can do one of two things depending on the information you have going into the meeting.

(1) Do you know the books that are going to be shared that night? If so, you can do a quick internet search to figure out the basic plot for each and base a menu of heavy appetizers and deserts on the information you find out.

For example, if one of your members is reading/sharing Eat, Pray, Love you could create a menu that included a few different types of pizza (book largely set in Italy).

(2) You don't know the books being shared but decide to create a theme anyway. There are several ways you can do this:

a. Choose a classic book to base the theme/decorations around. For example, you could base the meeting on Alice in Wonderland by setting up a tea party complete with "mad hats" and little tea cakes. Try this link, Alice in Wonderland, for actual pictures from the book that you could print and use as placemats, place cards, or bookmarks to hand out to your guests.

If you really want to get creative you can get a copy of the Disney movie and as a conversation starter during the tea party, play the clip of the Mad Hatter's tea party in the movie! A little "far out" but definitely a lot of book fun!

b. You mentioned your club is a "woman's group" so another really fun theme to go with is "Girl's Night Out." For this theme I would decorate your main meeting area in a "night on the town" scheme, complete with dance music for mood and even a disco ball if you want to get crazy! Have fondue as an appetizer (cheddar cheese with Italian bread and apples) and desert (Turtle chocolate with strawberries). Check out Best Fondue for great inspiration.

Get everyone their own drink glass (martini glasses for Cosmos, wine glasses for red or white, or coffee mugs for cappuccinos) and personalize each one with your members names and the date of the meeting. For other favor ideas, Book Favors.

Good luck and be sure to take a picture and come back and share it with us so that other book clubbers out there can learn from your experience!

Desiree, aka Queenie D