How does your book club select books?

I'm now the leader of a book club. While it's certainly not up to me to select the books the club will be reading, it is definitely up to me to make sure that a book is selected for each and every month. And what we've been doing for a long time doesn't seem to be working any longer.

I posed the question on how others select books in their book clubs on my Facebook page. My blog is new... and so is my Facebook page for the most part. I don't have a whole lot of followers. Yet. (If you like my blog, please like me on Facebook, too.) As a result, I still haven't gotten any responses. Sigh.

The first book club I belonged to only met 10 months out of the year and only read books at 9 of those meetings. Our final meeting during the school year was devoted to talking about books, gifting each other books, socializing and enjoying a great meal. We'd also select the book that we'd read at our first meeting in September. During the summer months when we didn't meet, we'd submit suggested titles to someone designated to collect the titles and create some sort of ballot that we'd then vote on, selecting our top 5 books of the year. The 8 books with the most votes would be the books we'd read from October through May. In September, we'd then decide during which month we'd discuss each of the books. This system worked then, and from what I understand from friends who are still in the book club, it works now.

The other book club, the one that where I am simply a member, only selects a book at the previous month's meeting. The same two or three people are happy to facilitate each month's discussion. So that isn't an issue at all. To make sure that we're reading from a wide variety of genres, about two years ago we assigned a genre to each month. January's genre isn't so much a genre. It's about a setting. We read books that are of local interest set in local spots. February is biography month (including autobiography and memoir). And so on. As a group, we know what types of titles we need bring to the meeting and then we do a quick informal survey and select the following month's book.

In the book club that I lead, the person who recommends the title is typically the person who will facilitate the discussion. New members are reluctant to suggest titles because they don't want the responsibility of facilitating a meeting. Nearly all of us prefer to get our books from the library so we're always dealing with a limited number of copies of any selected book that have to make the rounds of the club members in a relatively short period of time. We're also a fairly transient group. We're in a community of retirees and snowbirds. People are traveling, going "home," just aren't around all the time. Scheduling becomes a huge issue.

We read 11 months out of the year and spend one meeting a year, either in December or in January, to sharing titles of books we've loved. These can be books that we think would be great book club reads or books that we think others in the group would enjoy reading on their own.

At this month's meeting, which is tomorrow, I plan to suggest that we create a ballot of books, that each member votes, then I assign the months and volunteers can offer to facilitate. I'm wondering if this is too bold a move.

That's why I really wanted the help of others to hear how their book clubs do this! Is is so difficult for other groups? HELP!