Hold a Life-Changing Book Group

Holding a life-changing book group is a great way for members of a new - or long-standing book group to get to know more about each others' taste in books and life experiences.

Members may also find out about books they may not have considered reading and be inspired to write and share their stories.

Tips for holding a Life-Changing Book Group

  • Book Group members can bring their chosen book along so that everyone can find out about other's choices.
  • When you are holding your group, decide beforehand whether participants will be writing their story about The Book That Changed Their Life before the group meets or afterwards.
  • If participants have written their stories and brought them along, you might decide to have everyone handing in their story and redistributing them so that someone else reads it aloud to the group. This can be a good ice-breaker for the session, especially if participants have to guess whose story has been read out!
  • You might like to start the session by reading out (or having participants read) some of the stories which have already been submitted to the project. There is a wide selection of different types of stories where people have had their lives changed in different ways. Discussing the different ways in which people's lives have been changed by a book may inspire the participants to remember their own experiences.
  • There are different examples of being inspired by a book- for example you can be:
        o Inspired to travel
        o Inspired to read more books! 
        o Inspired to change their career 
        o Inspired to take up a new hobby 
        o Inspired to see certain things or people differently
        o Informed about new ways of finding information 
        o Informed about new skills
  • If participants haven't written their stories before the group meets, make sure you have some pens and paper handy so that people can make notes if they are inspired by what others have to say.
  • Participants may be daunted by a blank piece of paper in front of them - a classic horror for even professional writers and published authors. Get everyone to divide their paper into quarters and head each quarter What, Where, When and How. Then ask participants to write notes and draw doodles in each section.

            o WHEN did they discover the book? How old were they?
            o WHERE were they when they experienced their life-
               changing book moment? 
            o WHAT happened when you read this book? WHAT did
               they think?
            o HOW did they feel?

  • Remind the group that there need be no "eureka" moment to inspire a story. They may not have had their life changed in an earth-shattering way with long-term consequences.

If you are holding this book group discussion at a book shop or library you may have been provided with shelf cards by Scottish Book Trust. You may wish to have participants fill in a shelf card to share the book that changed their life with book browsers.