I've been waiting four years for this day!

Cute picture, huh? Click here
to see where I stole it from.

In seven hours and 36 pages, I will be blissfully sipping wine, munching on AB's Really Good Dip, and discussing We Were the Mulvaneys with Lydia and Renae. Book Club is back! I'm almost too excited for words.

Partly inspired by Whitney, who recently formed her own book club (though too far away for me to join), and partly sparked by Lydia, an avid reader I met when we worked together a few years back, I decided to stop waiting for a book club to come to me. All it took was Lydia's interest to encourage me to form our own group.

Through a quick flurry of emails we resolved to Make It So. Lydia enlisted Renae with little to no arm-twisting, and Renae has promised a few new members who will join us after this first, hurriedly slapped together meeting.

Tonight will probably also be a time of discussion of our club's guidelines (which is a slightly less restrictive word than "rules," but I still don't especially like it). We've already decided a few things: there will be wine, there will be food, we will meet once a month, tentatively having settled on the third Friday, rotating hosting duties between our houses.

One big thing that we have yet to consider is the selection of books. In my old book club--which I loved, though I want to consciously avoid forcing this new book club into its mold--the host of the current month selected and procured copies of the book to be discussed at our next meeting. This was great for two reasons: exposure to books I may not have chosen or even heard of on my own (without endless deliberation and concession), and--my favorite part--it was always so exciting to be surprised by the new selection. (OK, yes, I have to admit it was only almost always exciting. There were a few disappointments over the years.)  Stinkers notwithstanding, "The Reveal" was one of the highlights of Book Club.

I saw another interesting option for choosing book club books at Dolce Bellezza. Once a year they have a Choosing Night, where they settle on their reading list for the coming months. I like this because it would be a sure way to avoid unwanted re-reads. But I'm not sure if I can give up the monthly anticipation of "which book will be next?"

What are some other good ideas for choosing book club books?