We had an amazing book club, the Glover Park Book Club, back when a bunch of us lived in Georgetown and Glover Park. It was the best group of ladies who grew up in all kinds of different states and worked in industries across the board. At one point, there were more than 50 members on our list! Our club lasted nearly five years before we all scattered across the city and life got crazy busy, but it was always such a fun excuse to get together and share wine, fun appetizers off of Pinterest, and stories. If you have friends who are remotely interested, I highly recommend grabbing a bottle of wine, a few glasses, and starting one!

Bonus: check out our constantly updating book list here.Β 

Here are a few tips for starting your own book club:

Location, location, location. While this isn’t a must, it certainly helps. With the exception of a small handful, we all lived in the city. To make things even easier, many of us lived in Northwest D.C. That said, as long as you have a group of ladies who are motivated and ready to hit the ground running, living a few minutes apart isn’t a big deal. When it came to adding members, we had an open door policy. Our motto was that we loved the girls in our book club, so their friends were ours. Everyone felt that way, too, and we had such a good thing going that the new girls who came in already knew how things worked! I think it really helped us grow a fabulous and dedicated following.

Be consistent. Sometimes we would have 22 girls show up and other times we’d have 6, but we tried to always meet once a month. If your book club members know they can count on book club happening every month no matter what, they’re much more likely to make it a priority themselves. We had a private Facebook Group and invited everyone to private Facebook events for the monthly meetings. We also sent out fun emails for them. Both helped build our club and kept our members excited and ready for the next one!

Share the responsibilities. Each month, we picked a book and a theme to go along with it. The hostess for the month provided the house or apartment. There were always at least three co-hostesses each month who could provide back-up support for the hostess, such as making an additional dish, bringing an extra bottle of wine, or helping the hostess set up. We rotated duties so that everyone was able to lend a hand and had a chance to play hostess. In addition to having a hostess and co-hostesses, everyone who attended brought either a bottle of wine or an appetizer – and there were some fabulous and creative ones over the years!

Stay organized. We relied on Google Sheets to keep on top of our running book list and who was hosting when and where each month. We took book recommendations throughout the year and kept track of the ones we read and the ones that were next in queue.

Throwback photo below from Hilary’s GPBC holiday hosted brunch; handmade ornament by fellow GPBC member Brittany.