Book clubs are a technology for making books into shared experiences, and most of the bad book clubs I've been in failed not because of the books but because of the structure. The format that seems to work: twenty minutes of unstructured conversation where people say what hit them, then thirty minutes of structured discussion around three or four prepared questions, then ten minutes on the next selection. Total time: sixty minutes. Total books read per year if you meet monthly: twelve.

The questions that generate good discussion are not comprehension questions — not 'what happened in chapter four.' They're interpretation questions: what did you think this book was really about? Is there a character whose choices you disagree with? Is there a moment that felt false or unconvincing?

The best book club I've been in had a rule: no plot summary. If you're describing what happened, you're not discussing the book. This rule, once enforced twice, transforms the quality of the conversation entirely.