My name is Meghan! Now, just so you know, this isn’t where my story begins—oh no, that would be far too organized—but rather where things start to get interesting (and possibly a little chaotic). Welcome to my blog; fill up your glass and sit in your comfiest reading chair, it’s going to be a Helvetica (hell of a-see what I did there) ride!

Last year, I bravely ventured into the wild world of book clubs. I am a bartender who loves books. And I was given a great opportunity to combine both of my passions (books and brews) at my place of work- The Brass Tap through the form of a book club. Every month it feels like a game of ‘Guess Who’ with familiar bar regular faces and the occasional new recruit from the outside world who are shocked to learn we actually talk about the books and don’t just sit around a circle drinking and spilling the booze tea (don’t worry we do that too).

To my surprise, there is a lot that goes into planning a book club ( at least one that anyone wants to attend). First we have to pick the book. You might think this is easy but I assure you, this is the most stressful part, more stressful than debating whether or not to DNF a book 75% of the way through. If you pick the book and it sucks, prepare for the wrath of the book banshees. And if let someone else pick the book and it sucks well then your whole month of planning for the meeting will suck, if you even manage to get through the read. Fortunately, this only happened one time for me- Wicked by Gregory Maguire (brace yourself if your club picks any book by him.) I will say, I think as a club we have learned not to just pick a book because it’s coming to the big screen. And then we have the perfectly imperfect solution of taking recommendations and throwing up a poll. But you aren’t clear of responsibility yet, now you have to sift through all the recs and decide what makes the poll. And someone’s (sports bio, memoir, self-help, non booktok) recs almost never gets picked. I beg you to please keep reading and attending the meetings! If there is a better way, SOS, please send help! With that being said, we have had about a 50% success rate with our picks, the bad mostly due to characters we hated or the random streak of masochistic novels we kept choosing (again because one was coming to the big screen- I repeat do not let that be a reason you choose a book for your book club). Now that we have picked the book(s) with minimal tears and bloodshed, I have to find and read the book within a short time to prepare for all the next steps- this is by far the easiest step. Then I have to write out discussion questions (which end up all being answered on question one. Who knew the question ‘Did you enjoy the book?’ would illicit such SAT Writes level prompt answers). Then I design a menu around the book because this is a drinking book club (we do not shame the non drinkers) we just also happen to actually read the books. For example, in the past I made a calendar page with drinks on the dates for the book Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian Macallister (this was a big favorite among the club if you need a good pick). I have also done a missing persons poster for All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whittacker- our last read of 2024 and another favorite. Because I promote this club at a bar venue, the menu is a great way to push some sales and help the club thrive. Plus if you loosen up the crowd, the discussions become really entertaining! Let them order a couple rounds while you go over other superfluous book club topics, then just ask ‘Did you enjoy the book?’ and sit back and smell the pages.

Now for the fun part, this is where I think of fun ideas for goodie bags because every party needs favors!! Sometimes they are simple with stickers, enamel pins etc. and other times they are elaborately themed with puzzles, spoons (I love to give spoons-it’s not a weird fetish, they have just fit so well with the books or maybe its just me making them fit. Yeah that’s probably more likely. But have you read Butcher and the Blackbird, of course I had to make the goodie bags look like cartons of cookies and cream ice cream and you can’t eat ice cream without a SPOON! You get the point, I’m just strange.) Mind you I do this out of my own pocket, and I’m a lowly pauper who spends all my spare coins on books that I probably won’t read until next year….and this year just started, so the bags aren’t Oprah level giveaways but they are still fun! And lately some kind souls have offered to put together the bags for me, how kind! We also have our very own Adam Savage (the building guy on Myth Busters) who 3D prints amazing themed things for us every month. Remember how we suffered through Wicked, well our good friend printed us Lego style Elphabas! I have been so lucky with this group! Now when I do stick to my book buying ban and find a lucky Charlie bucket dollar in a drainage pipe, you know I have to create chaos…

Welcome to the chaos of the book club games. Obviously we can’t just talk about the books, I must add in a little torture now and again. In the past I’ve made people who have never met each other sit in groups and tackle brain teasers that to my chagrin were nearly impossible to solve in the allotted time. I have hosted murder mystery parties, trailer park themed! Needless to say those meetings didn’t end with a lot of book discussions but were entertaining nonetheless! I have done match the quote to the character for 600 page books with 30+ characters, what was I thinking. Oh how can I forget, the first game we played involved not being able to say the word book and what was the reading material that month you ask- The Midnight Library! You know how hard it is to not say book to discuss a book about books! Don’t worry, all of my shenanigans have resulted in a brave few to receive extra special goodie bags (I don’t just torture for fun.)

Now on to the point of this blog, the rising action if you must. Because of all the ups and downs of this book club, I have taken to the streets (the endless web streets of google) in search of GOOD ideas for the books we have read and while some kind and wonderful book addicts have shared there inside secrets, there have been many novels I have had to butcher my way through using my own brain cells. Can you believe that, how rude. More like how rude of me to expect other people to post their great ideas when I haven’t shared all my past fails. You know what they say, “every failure teaches you one more way that doesn’t work towards the road to success,” “every strike brings us closer to a home run.” So how dare I not share my knowledge but expect everyone else to share theirs. So here I am. Enjoy this part of my story where I share my passion of books through the trial and error that is the books and brews club. My name is Meghan.