A collection of essays by book group leaders and members about their book groups-how/why they started, what works and doesn't work and how they deal with problems. Includes lists of books they've read. Not so much a guide as an interesting read for someone in a book club or thinking about forming one. ( )

I had high expectations of this book. Having just started an online book group, I was looking for new and interesting ways of entertaining my readers.

Unfortunately, this book and I were not a match, and I stopped reading about 80 pages into the book.

The beginning of the book is taken up with essays and poetry of various book groups describing themselves and their processes. Sometimes the information is helpful, but most of all, the essays gloss over the detailed information I was looking for, and began to be repetitive. The poetry didn't assist me at all.

In the back of the book are the reading lists of the groups. This may be helpful to persons looking for reading lists, but I was looking for ideas to present to and to retain my online readers, so I simply glossed over the information.

Unfortunately this book didn't meet my criteria of what I would classify as a "thoughtful guide" based on the pages I read.

For more book reviews, be sure to check out my blog located at: http://antiquebooks.typepad.com ( )