Is there an optimal number for a book club discussion?

Just a small portion of the members who attended our February book club meeting

Late last month, I participated in  an Activity Showcase within our community. The purpose was to introduce all the many activities and clubs to residents, new and old alike. In previous showcases, I've had two or three people stop by the book club table. We'd chat a little bit but only infrequently did more than one or two people ever show up at a book club meeting. In January, I was busy talking to prospective members about our book club nearly the entire two hours of the showcase. Not only did we talk about the book club, we also talked about books. I was able to jot down a few recommendations and I sensed I was speaking with many kindred spirits.

A few days before each book club meeting, I send out an email reminding everyone of the date, time and place of our next meeting, what we'll be discussion and who will be facilitating the discussion. By yesterday, my list of whom to expect at the meeting was upwards of 20 people.

I started to panic. Isn't 20-plus people too many to have a good book club discussion? I surely didn't want to say no to any of the prospective members. Nor did I want to tell existing numbers not to attend. I really worried about how we could have a decent meeting with so many people. I worried that long-time members would be disgusted with me and I expected new people to be turned off. I decided to welcome everyone. And to offer a preemptive apology for having so many people at the meeting. 

Now, several hours after the meeting, I am here to say that you can have a wonderful meeting with lots of people. We had way more than 20 people. I only wish that everyone had RSVPed so I would have been able to arrange for a larger circle of chairs before the meeting. We had 3 or 4 people sitting behind others in the circle, something that bugged me during the entire meeting.

Lots of the credit for the great meeting can go to the book, Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. There was so much to discuss about this book compared to last month's selection, reading a novel by Tim Dorsey. We all love Sue Monk Kidd's style of writing. All but one of us really loved the book, and the only reason that the one member didn't love the movie is because she felt the subject of slavery and women's rights has been beaten to death and she'd like to read a book about something else. Fiction or non-fiction. Lots of credit also goes to the woman who facilitated our discussion. She gave us a great introduction to the book and about the author. And came prepared with discussion questions to get our meeting started.

Usually in a large book club meeting, people sitting near each other break off into sidebar conversations which are annoying and disrespectful. Often in a large meeting - and by large I'm talking about meetings of over 15 people, not over 20 people - the conversation gets really off-track. That didn't happen at all. The meeting was wonderful. The people in attendance are all book lovers, serious readers and really, really smart. We all walked away knowing that we'd experienced something very special. But I think only a few of us realized how nearly miraculously special this meeting truly was.