Book clubs get tagged with being “boring,” but when you’ve got the right book club ideas, they’re anything but a grand ol time!
Of course, reading is the main enjoyment and goal (Because it’s the best), but there are many entertaining, thoughtful, and crafty activities that can be paired up with it. We’ve got some radical book club ideas for you to dive into so you can bring out the ‘lit’ in literature.
Time to pump up the jam with these unique and obtainable book club ideas for you and your lovely book club members!
Fun Book Club Ideas
Everyone’s definition of fun is a little bit different, so please feel free to tweak any of the following ideas until it matches up to your fun standards (We get it, no hard feelings). These fun book club ideas are inexpensive, inclusive, and have everyone in the book club group in mind. It’s no fun when you feel like you’re left out, and unfortunately, it can happen even in a group of friends you’ve known forever. Sometimes it just happens! But these fun book club ideas, they’re all about including everyone and forming a great bond.
This set of book club ideas is also centered around meeting at someone’s home, or a headquarters if y’all are fancy.
- Bookish Charades: Once your book club has finished a book, celebrate by hosting a little game night and doing charades in the theme of the book you just read! Have everyone write down their ideas on slips of paper (characters, scenes, themes, inside jokes) and play the game as usual!
- Cozy Reading Sess: Get your fuzzy blankets, throw on a pair of PJs, and don’t worry about your hair because it’s time for a cozy reading sess. Gather your book club in a nice living room/den; if you have the capability, you can put on a peaceful ambiance, and then get your read on! We love book club ideas that require minimal effort/money, but still have such a great quality of togetherness and make a wonderful book club memory.
- Group TBR Board: Get a little crafty and pick up a tag board from the store, break out the construction paper, and glue sticks, and fire up the printer- collab together and decorate a board that’s full of all the books you’d like to read as a group! This board can travel from meeting to meeting, or have a designated spot; it’s much like a vision/manifestation board. Either way, how fun and sentimental to do altogether!
- DIY Bookmarks: If you’re a bookworm, chances are you love collecting bookmarks. What if you and your group made DIY bookmarks for each new book you were reading? Rather before the book or after with some of your favorite quotes from the story, there’s so much creativity to step into!
- Tea Sampling & Reading: Do you have a group of book & tea lovers? Combine those love together! Ask everyone to seek out an interesting tea, and at your next meeting/reading time altogether, you can treat yourselves to a little tea sampling. This simple activity can really elevate the atmosphere and mood!
- Message Board Fun: You’ve seen those fun message boards, right? If you don’t have one, we think you’d get quite the kick out of it! Utilizing this in your regular meeting space, in photos, or having it travel from different meeting spaces is a lot of fun. You can put anything up, from bookish quotes to hilarious bookworm humor!
- Quote Book: Keep track of your group’s favorite quotes from the books you read! Get a little notebook and have a designated quote note taker or pass it around and record your group’s favorite quotes from each of your reads. Mark down the dates, too, and enjoy looking back!
- Book Club Bracelets: Who said friendship bracelets are just for kiddos? What a fun activity it would be to tap back into those giggling adolescent times and make DIY bracelets together. You can even add a cute little book charm!
- Decorate your Meeting Space: This can be a group effort of bringing cozy and bookish items to a particular meeting space to make it feel like a place that has bits and pieces of each group member. You can even collaborate on some DIY projects to add that personal touch, like an easy but super cute tassel garland DIY!
- Potluck: Book club meeting potluck! But not just any potluck; challenge yourselves by making foods from the story you’ve just read and or naming your dish after the book in a clever way.
Get Together Book Club Ideas
One of the major celebrations of a book club is the act of gathering together. There’s nothing like being in a room full of bookworms that are all giddy about reading. Here are some fabulous book club ideas to get you and your crew out making memories in the name of book club fun!
The majority of these book club ideas are prompt to get you out and about while still engaging in reading and or discussing what you’ve read. Enjoy!
- Little Free Library Hunt: All done reading your book club book, and you’d like to pass it on? Pull up the Little Free Library website and discover ones close to you, and have a group drop-off road trip at a few different spots!
- Photoshoot: You might be wondering how this connects with book club ideas (that’s fair). Are there some iconic scenes from the book you’ve read? Or hilarious moments? Recreate them and take some pictures; it’s the ultimate book nerd activity. What are you going to do with those pictures? You can share them on social media, or you can follow this next book club ideas below.
- Book Club Scrapbook: How adorable would a book club scrapbook be?! Snap pictures of memorable outings or group pictures of everyone holding their books up and keep them in a quirky and crafty scrapbook that will be wholesome and heartwarming to explore over the course of your book club.
- Rotate Local Coffee Shops: Want to get your group out of the house and support local businesses? Hold your book club meetings at different coffee shops around your town or even the town over! There’s something about having a book in front of you, a coffee in hand, and a discussion with fellow bibliophiles that just perks you right up.
- Volunteer Together: Coming together can be an amplifying experience when you’re selflessly helping someone else. Talk to your book club group about volunteering in your community! You could chat with your local library, or shelters, and get in the spirit of giving back as a team.
- Book Thrifting: There’s always enough room on the shelf for more books, right? Whelp, if not, while you’re all out thrifting for more secondhand books, you can keep your eyes peeled for a bookcase too!
From a Distance Book Club Ideas
Sometimes, for reasons out of your control, you just aren’t able to meet in person. Whether someone is sick or schedules are busy, it’s nice to have book club ideas that you can do from a distance with your book club pals.
These book club ideas are geared towards being conducted over group chats, video calls, message boards, or Facebook Groups. Just because these activities are done from a distance, doesn’t mean they aren’t fun book club ideas!
- Booky Call: Introduce your book club to the unbelievably fun app called Booky Call! Basically, it’s a dating app for bookworms. But, instead of talking to people, you’re swiping left or right on potential books. Who knows, maybe you’ll find your next book club book on there!
- Printable Bookworm Word Search: Who doesn’t love a quaint little word search? Your bookish pals will dig this one; it’s created especially for book lovers, AND it’s totally FREE! Surprise your book club members by sending this free printable word search to their inbox, and later you can all comment on how you liked them.
- Casting Roles: Make a post on your group’s page or group chat asking which actors/actresses the members of your group would cast for the characters in your book if it were adapted for on-screen. This can spark some fun creativity or grand debates!
- Playlist Collab: On Spotify or YouTube, form a playlist of music with your book club members of songs that remind you of your current read, or a favorite past read. This can be a really enjoyable and insightful book club ideas to get a perspective on how everyone in the group felt about the book, and a chance for you to dive even deeper into the book’s world.
- Brainstorm Discussion Questions: Aren’t able to meet up in person to talk about the book? Ask everyone to brainstorm some discussion questions and hold a virtual meeting! Or, you can even post a question in your book club’s group chat or page and have people comment their answers.
- Meme Creating & Sharing: Laughter is the best, and one of the best hilarious revolutions of this past decade has been the induction of memes. Memes are like a joke embedded in a picture! You’ve probably seen them all over Facebook and on your discover page on Instagram. Well, take a crack at creating your own memes based on book club humor or the book you’ve been reading. Look up bookworm memes to get your feet wet, and then start making your own book club memes and share them with your group members! We’ve made an example for you to check out; if we can do it, you can crush it!
We hope you’ve enjoyed the fun book club ideas we’ve shared, and that they’ve sparked a sense of adventure to seek out even more book club ideas of your own! As long as everyone in your group is involved and having a good time (and you’re not doing anything illegal, you crazy bookworms), there aren’t any bad book club ideas.
Now that you’ve got some book club ideas under your bookish belt, are you in search of some book club advice? Or how about book club name ideas? We’ve got your back (whether it’s hardcover or paperback)!