The Book Club Blueprint
In our previous posts, we’ve mentioned the famous “Wine and Spine Society” a few times, but we never fully explained what it is or how we started it. Essentially, Wine and Spine is the name for the book club we started in January with our friend Alex Womack. Starting a book club was honestly one of the best side quests we undertook senior year. In this post, we dive into how we put this book club together, the benefits of a book club, and the structure we follow. We also have recently gotten questions from friends about how they could start a book club, so we’ll finish off with some tips for success! Keep reading for a glimpse into an important part of our world.
The Beginning
In our 2025 bingo cards blog post, we briefly mentioned that one of our main goals for the year was to read consistently and explore new genres. In late December, we were chatting about our New Year’s resolutions in a group chat with Alex and realized that all three of us had a goal relating to reading in some form. Naturally, we all agreed that a book club would be a perfect way to hold ourselves accountable in our reading journey while making goal-setting more fun. You will quickly notice that some of our best ideas are born from random, late-night group chat conversations. Throughout college we participated in some Honors book discussions and had friends that led Medicine in Literature book clubs. The idea for our book club was to invite some of our best friends to join as a way to discuss, catch up, and read together weekly. Since it was our last semester of college, the book club was also a very convenient way to make sure we hung out with our friends at least once a week. We also had just finished our study abroad at Oxford and thought this would be a great way to form a community from different parts of our life.
You might be wondering where our name came from. Another one of Dawson’s 2025 goals was taking the WSET sommelier courses to expand his knowledge on wine. So, Saanvikha thought of the idea of potentially calling it Wine and Spine Society and tasting a new wine each week during our discussions. Then, courtesy of ChatGPT and Dall-E, we came up with this beautiful logo. Then, all we had to do was invite our friends to join! Almost everyone was so on board with Wine and Spine, and that’s how our book club came to life.
Benefits of Wine and Spine
Like we said, Wine and Spine has been such a definitive part of senior spring. So much so that we decided to continue it virtually this summer! Here are some of the most important benefits for us from starting a book club:
- We read so much more consistently! Something about having weekly meetings and discussing books with friends makes it SO much more motivating to read a book. Despite busy weeks or school, we noticed that we made an intentional effort to read before bed, in the morning, or in between classes. Having friends to call or text about plot twists in the book we’re reading makes the process exciting.
- Reflection, analysis, and vocabulary: It’s easy to start skimming a book or not pay attention to details while reading. When we read with the intention of discussing the book later, we have noticed that we make more of an effort to take notes or jot down important quotes or plot points. To engage in meaningful discussions, we also have to reflect on how the book made us feel or how it influenced our thoughts. The process of analyzing and reflecting is important in various other parts of life and improves our ability to critically think. Reading is also the best way to improve the breadth of personal vocabulary. We have actually seen a huge improvement in our grasp of more complex vocabulary since we started Wine and Spine (shoutout to anyone who tried to find GRE words in books we read!)
- Genre exploration: Through Wine and Spine, we explored several genres of literature that we otherwise might not have chosen to read. From self help to personal finance to literary thriller, we did it all. Also, we learned so many life skills (including everything about a 529 – thank you, Dawson)!
- Community: Arguably, the most important benefit of Wine and Spine was the creation of a community. Like we mentioned, a book club was a perfect excuse for all of our friends to hang out while doing something intellectually stimulating. We would spend well over the hour allotted for book club just chatting and catching up on life. Monday nights were easily some of the best nights of the week.
Structure
We tried to lay out a predictable structure at the beginning of the semester so that everyone knew what to expect. When forming a book club with some of the busiest people we know, it was super important that we planned ahead. This is what worked for us!
- Meetings weekly on Monday at 7:30 PM: We decided on this time based on what worked best for the three of us and then polling our friends on a time that was best for their schedule. Honestly, everyone was super flexible and accommodating which made choosing a meeting time seamless.
- Four books throughout the semester: We tried to be reasonable about giving everyone plenty of time to get through a book. Every time we chose a book, we looked at the page length and strategically divided it up based on how many weeks it would take to finish. In general, we aimed to read 100-150 pages a week, which is around 20 pages a night.
- Discussion questions: We didn’t always use discussion questions during meetings, but we started off sending some out the day before to give everyone a general idea of concepts we could talk about. As we got more comfortable and the semester progressed, we abandoned discussion questions because conversations generally drove themselves.
- Social aspects: At the beginning of almost every meeting we started with a rose, bud, thorn. Wine and Spine was partially created with the intention of community-building, so, of course, we wanted to hear updates from our friends. Sometimes rose, bud, thorn would generate additional side conversations, but this is what made book club meetings fun and conversational. We even had an ice cream social at the end to celebrate the end of the semester!
- Surveys: We used a TON of surveys and google forms. One of our main goals was making sure everyone had a voice and genuinely enjoyed Wine and Spine. So, we would ask for recommendations on wine we should provide at meetings, books to read, and how we can improve on our end. Obviously, including 17 voices and opinions can be overwhelming, but we did our best to have a relatively democratic process.
Tips
Finally, we wanted to give you some tips on how you could start your own book club!
- Find a group of friends that you think would all be interested in reading and would foster good discussions. It could be as small as 5 people or as big as 20 (we recommend shooting for somewhere in-between).
- Try to add a fun aspect to meetings. Our “fun” twist was tasting wine, but yours could be something different. Perhaps you meet in a different location each week. Maybe there is an activity that accompanies each meeting. In a past book club she led, Saanvikha made fun, themed treats for each meeting. Make it your own!
- Add bonding moments in meetings. Our bonding was usually rose, bud, thorn or the conversations before/after the meeting. Having an icebreaker is a very easy way to get the conversation rolling.
- Try to ask for book recommendations. People will be more inclined to read a book if they actually enjoy it. So, rather than picking the book for everyone each week, you can all take turns or have some kind of polling/voting system.
- Be consistent and flexible. Create a predictable schedule whether you meet weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Choose based on what works for everyone that way they can build it into their schedules. Even if not everyone can show up for each meeting, still host them because discussions are still valuable. If something isn’t working, be willing to adapt and change. We tried to listen to feedback after every book to see what was working and what could be improved.
Our plan this summer
As mentioned, we are continuing Wine and Spine this summer with a modified routine. We are now doing meetings over zoom and meeting biweekly! We are also picking books that are ~250 pages or less that are fairly digestible so that our members can opt into specific reads. We recommend formatting your own book club in a way that is right for you.
As you can tell, we LOVE Wine and Spine society and everything it has given us. If you have any book recommendations for us, as always, reach out. Otherwise, we hope we’ve encouraged or convinced you all to start your own version of Wine and Spine!