Get our Best Book Club Books of 2025 eBook!

Summary and Reviews of The Reading Group Handbook by Rachel Jacobsohn

The Reading Group Handbook by Rachel W. Jacobsohn

The Reading Group Handbook

Everything You Need to Know to Start Your Own Book Club

by Rachel W. Jacobsohn
  • Critics' Consensus (1):
  • Paperback:
  • Apr 1998, 236 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

A definitive, step-by-step guide to starting your own book club, written by a professional reading group leader who has organized and lead groups - face-to-face and even on-line - for over twenty years.

Book clubs and reading groups give fellow members the chance to break out of established reading patterns and learn adventurous approaches to creative material. With the help of The Reading Group Handbook, you'll get a definitive, step-by-step guide to starting your own book club, written by a professional reading group leader who has organized and lead groups - face-to-face and even on-line - for over twenty years.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $0 for 0 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

Library Journal
Jacobsohn, founder and president of the Association of Book Group Readers and Leaders, recently published what became the bible of book discussion groups, The Reading Group Handbook Everything You Need To Know from Choosing Members to Leading Discussions (Hyperion, 1994). This newly revised edition includes updated reading lists and bibliographies plus additional suggestions on group dynamics; organizational, administrative, and logistical issues; and discussion techniques garnered from extensive surveying of book groups.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $0 for 0 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Reading Group Handbook, try these:

  • The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Reading Group jacket

    The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Reading Group

    by Patrick Sauer

    Published 1999

    About this book

    The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Reading Group is every book lover's guide to putting together a group and having successful discussions -- or knowing where to find an existing group.

  • Reading Group Journal jacket

    Reading Group Journal

    by Martha Burns

    Published 1999

    About this book

    This charming fill-in journal will be an invaluable resource and keepsake for anyone who already belongs to a reading group, and an inspiration to anyone who wants to join or organize one.


Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $0 for 0 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Based on the author’s family story, comes an extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ escape from Taiwan.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Ginseng Roots
    by Craig Thompson

    A new graphic memoir from the author of Blankets and Habibi about class, childhood labor, and Wisconsin’s ginseng industry.

  • Book Jacket

    Serial Killer Games
    by Kate Posey

    A morbidly funny and emotionally resonant novel about the ways life—and love—can sneak up on us (no matter how much pepper spray we carry).

  • Book Jacket

    Awake in the Floating City
    by Susanna Kwan

    A debut novel about an artist and a 130-year-old woman bound by love and memory in a future, flooded San Francisco.

  • Book Jacket

    The Original Daughter
    by Jemimah Wei

    A dazzling debut by Jemimah Wei about ambition, sisterhood, and family bonds in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

Who Said...

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

B W M in H M

and be entered to win..