[Michlib-l] FW: Help with Books into Movies Book Club

[Lodge, Daniel]

Greetings! I thought I would post the responses that I've gotten so far with my request for help with Books into Movies Book Club. I want to thank everyone who took the time to respond.

Dan Lodge
Librarian I Adult Services
Henry Ford Centennial Library
Dearborn, MI


*         We read the book first and then see the movie. Patrons have until the end of the month to read that month's title. Then we watch the movie and discuss both.

*         We do our club on the last Wednesday of the month.

*         We try to pick popular titles with recent adaptions. Thankfully, the past several years have seen many high profile adaptions such as the Hunger Games, In the Heart of the Sea, the Dark Tower, etc.


When I was in college, I took a Fiction to Film class.  We read the book first and then viewed the movie, and then discussed themes and how they were handled.   I recall reading and watching Wuthering Heights, A Place in the Sun and Klute!  Quite a variety!  There were others but these are the ones that spring to mind!

I do it the completely lazy way.  We have a Books to Movies night every Monday night at 6:30pm.  We show movies that were made into books or based on true stories.  I will tell them what book the movie is based on.  We don't discuss the book or the movie most of the time.  This group of people just like to watch movies based on books.  Sometimes we may say (if they read the book or I have) what is better but really, we just.watch.movies.  We have done this for four years and most of the movies depend on what titles are available in our licensing database.  I pick them all because I love to.  Easy peasy.  Sometimes I do a theme--love movies in February, Christmas ones in December, Basketball in March, etc but right now it has been new releases.  We get popcorn free from the local theater and serve water.  I have a core group of 6-8 people and depending on the movie may only have 3 who attend and the largest amount of people was 20.


At the Fowlerville District Library we have a books to movies book club that we call "Beyond the Book". It occasionally includes book discussions about books that do not have film adaptations if the book is particularly relevant.

We begin registration for the program 3 weeks before the book discussion. As long as our supply lasts, we give out a free copy of the book to each person who signs up. (We usually purchase about 10-12 new or lightly used copies to give out). This way they have a chance to read the book before meeting with everyone at the library to watch the film.

We hold our adult programs on Thursday nights at 7pm. If there is a film adaptation of the book, we begin the night by watching the film together, and then discuss it afterwards. We have found that this time works well for most people, but we do have to be careful of film length. Anything over 2 hours and some people may need to leave early and end up missing the discussion. Discussion usually lasts for about 15-30 minutes. We also offer those in attendance a chance to sign up for the next Beyond the Book program and pass out the next book at the end of the night.

Beyond the Book meets once a month year round, sometimes skipping December because of the holidays and other special programming.

For each season of the year we try to pick 3 or 4 books/movies that have something in common. For example, our county did a county-wide read of Andy Weir's The Martian around the time the film came to DVD, so we used it for Beyond the Book and chose other survival stories to accompany it and made "Survival" our theme for that winter. We've also done themes around food, travel, fantasy, science fiction, self-discovery, outcasts, and many other topics. We usually try to find one book the we love, is particularly relevant today, and/or has a new film being released, and then try to plan other books that go along with it in some way.

If you would like any more information about our Beyond the Book club please feel free to email Beth Lowe, our Program Director at b.lowe at fowlervillelibrary.org<mailto:b.lowe at fowlervillelibrary.org>. She is the one who started and designed the program at our library and can give you more details about how it has evolved over the years and can answer any questions you might have.

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