The following sets of guidelines were developed by the founding members of the group: Phyllis Gilman,
Betty Yoder, April Legler, Jan Slameka, Jeanette Hendry, Joyce Mabert, and Pat Kingsbury.
Guidelines for UWC Book Discussion Group
1. Each member reads the book ahead of time.
2. Each member takes a turn in being a discussion leader.
3. Monthly discussion leader gives information on book and author. She also starts the discussion
and asks questions as necessary to facilitate participation.
4. Each member takes a turn being a meeting hostess.
5. Meeting begins with socializing from 9:30 to 10:00. Discussion runs from 10:00 to 11:30.
6. All members have the opportunity to recommend books.
7. Remember to thank the hostess.
8. Remind members about the next meeting.
Guidelines for Leading Book Discussion
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Don’t permit two or more discussions to go on simultaneously.
Tell something about the author either at the beginning of the discussion, but leave comments by
literary critics for the end.
Be a leader, not a lecturer. Prepare questions to bring out discussion. Don’t try to get a right
answer. Remain neutral.
Listen carefully and don’t talk too much. If a good discussion is going on, stay out of it. Observe
its development in order to encourage more in-depth discussion. When someone is struggling
with a difficult idea, help her to work it out by asking pertinent questions.
Submerge your own opinion. A leader who answers questions runs the danger of shutting off the
process of exploring the topic and stopping the whole dynamic of the discussion. When asked for
your point of view, don’t expound but turn the request back by asking another question.
If a discussion gets off topic, try to steer it to a more relevant one without destroying the interest
of the moment.
Don’t summarize. The discussion is for individuals to develop their own opinions, not to come to
a consensus.
Examples of questions:
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What is the theme, or basic idea, or view of life of the book?
What kind of person is telling this story?
Did you like or dislike the characters? Did you identify with any of them? Who? Why? Are they
stereotypes?
Is this book true to life? Could it have been more so? In what way are the events or scenes or
characters believable, or not?
Does it help you understand life better, or other people, or yourself? In what way?
Did you like the book? Why?
How would you describe the style this book is written in, and does it work? (tense usage, first or
third person, choice of words, descriptions, structure, etc.)
History of the University Women’s Club Book Discussion Group
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(Provided by Phyllis Gilman)
February 15, 1996 – Organizational meeting at Jeanette Hendry’s house. The University
Women’s Club general meeting in January had featured Don Cook talking on the author Edith
Wharton. So we decided to do House of Mirth by Edith Wharton for our March meeting.
Then the second book we did, suggested by April Legler, was Handling Sin by Michael Malone
for the May meeting.
At the May meeting we discussed possible books for next fall and a luncheon at Chapman’s.
Books Read Since 1996
(Compiled by Maribeth McKaig)
1996-97
Happenstance by Carol Shields
Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman
Among the Believers by V.S. Naipaul
The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton
1997-98
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
Road from Coorain and True North by Jill Kerr
Conway
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by
Rebecca Wells
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
1998-99
My Antonia by Willa Cather
First Ladies by Margaret Truman
Glass Lake by Maeve Binchy
Personal History by Katherine Graham
Andorra by Peter Cameron
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
1999-2000
The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve
Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung
Chang
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
We Band of Angels by Elizabeth Norman
2000-01
The Book Club by Alice Monroe
Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream by John
Derbyshire
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! By Fannie
Flagg
No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Hill Country by Janus Windle
Paradise News by David Lodge
2001-02
Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Plain Song by Kent Haruf
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Elegy for Iris by John Bayley
The Florabama Ladies Auxiliary and Sewing
Circle by Lois Battle
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel
2002-03
John Adams by David McCullough
The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
River Town: Two Years by the Yangtze by
Peter Hessler
House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
Tomcat in Love by Larry O’Brien
King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hoschild
Ship of Gold in a Deep Blue Sea by Gary
Kinder
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
2003-2004
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by
Dai Sijie
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
George Washington by Wilard Sterne Randall
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
Foolscap by Michael Malone
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Conan Doyle
The Winter of Our Discontent by John
Steinbeck
2004-05
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
Benjamin Franklin by Walater Isaacson
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson
McCullers
The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Master Butcher’s Singing Club by Louise
Erdich
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
2005-06
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines
The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth
Tarkington
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to
His White Mother by James McBride
The Known World by Edward Jones
2006-07
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys by Louisa
May Alcott
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by
Jung Chang
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the NightTime by Mark Haddon
A Venetian Affair: A True Tale of Forbidden
Love in the 18th Century by Andrea Di Robilant
German Boy: A Child in War by Wolfgang
W.E. Samuel
My Sister’s Keeper: A Novel by Jodi Picault
2007-08
Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Bel Canto by Anne Patchett
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
One Thousand White Women by Ron Fergus
Sorrow’s Anthem by Michael Koryta
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey
Niffennegger
2008-09
West with the Night by Beryl Markham
Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver
The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Air We Breathe by Andrea Barrett
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie
O’Farrell
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to
Promote Peace…One School at a Time by Greg
Mortenson and David Relin
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
2009-10
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall and
Denver Moore
Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking
Dangerously by Julie Powell
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White
House by Jon Meacham
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie
Society by Shaffer and Barrows
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Capt.
Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa
Cather
The Book Thief by Markus Zukas
2010-11
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by
Michael Chabon
River of Doubt by Candice Millard
Monuments Men by Robert Edsel
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg
Larsson
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund