10 Tips for Buddy or Group Reads with Friends or Family

Way back on May 3 of this year, I made published the following post: Buddy and/or Group Reads over Zoom. My family and I are still going strong with reading a chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit each time we meet. However, instead of meeting once a month, we changed it to meeting every Sunday. It may be taking us "a while" to get through the book, but it's valued family time for all of us.

When I'm writing this, my family will be meeting for another Hobbit read on the upcoming Sunday. With us meeting so soon after I'm writing this, it got me thinking about making another post on buddy and/or group reads. That's why I looked for the post linked above so that I didn't repeat the same points in two separate posts. This, as a result, got me thinking about possible tips and suggestions I could give for doing buddy and/or group reads, especially with friends or family.

With all that out of the way, here are 10 tips for buddy or group reads with friends or family.

Tip 1: Try to decide on a book as soon as possible.

This may seem like an obvious tip. However, I think it's the most important thing to consider. That way, once you decide on the book, everyone can move to either buy or borrow the book before you actually start reading.

Tip 2: If you can't decide on a book, use something like a TBR jar to help decide.

On the flipside of Tip 1, it can be hard to decide on the book. As a result, a TBR jar can lend a helping hand in the decision-making process. On October 2, I made a post about creating a TBR jar, which can also be applied to this situation. Create a list of books that everyone in your group wants to read - maybe keep it to one book per person in your book.  Then, put all of these titles in a jar, shake it up, and then choose a book.

Tip 3: Make sure everyone is able to have access to the book you decide to read.

This is just as important as Tip 1. If not everyone has access to the book, whether through buying it or borrowing it, then there's no use in starting your buddy or group read. While, if the person is okay with it, you can start before they get the book (if they'll get access soon and if they say it's okay), it may take them some time to catch up. So I'd recommend just making sure that everyone has access to the book.

Tip 4: If you're doing a group read, set a maximum number of people that'll be in that group read.

This tip may be a bit confusing, especially if there are a lot of people in your family or friend groups who love reading. However, if you have a large number of people in the group read, it can be hard to manage, especially with Tips 5-9. However, having a smaller number as your maximum number of people in the group read can make Tips 5-9 easier to manage.

Tip 5: Decide on how you'll meet up to discuss the book.

Will you do audio calls, FaceTime, video calls, Zoom, Google Meets, or another video/phone calling app? Or will you do email, text, or another form of group chat messaging board? (Some of these messaging boards, like Discord, do have video and voice features as well.)

Tip 6: Decide on when you'll meet up to discuss the book.

Will you meet up regularly, such as once every 1-2 weeks as you read the book? Or will you meet up after you're all done with the book? What day of the week and what time will you be meeting up to discuss the book?

Tip 7: Decide if you'll meet up to read the book together at multiple points in time or if you'll just meet up after you're all done with the book.

I mentioned this briefly in Tip 6, but it deserved its own tip. It can be hard to approach meeting up if you don't decide on how regularly you'll meet up as you read the book, or if you'll just meet afterward. Additionally, it can also help to know the schedules of everyone in your buddy or group read.

Tip 8: If you'll be meeting regularly, set times that you'll check in with your buddy or group as you read.

Again, make sure these are days and times that work best for everyone in your group. It's also good to have a rough idea of when you'll be meeting up (or, at least, talking) with everyone in your buddy/group read. These can change as you go along but have a rough idea of when you'll discuss the book.

Tip 9: Make sure that you decide on a day and time to meet that works with everyone's schedules.

I've mentioned this briefly in the previous tips. However, it's always good to make sure that when you meet works with everyone's basic schedules. I say "basic schedules" because things can come up at the last minute, or even the week before. As a result, as long as you have a day that works with the basic schedule, you can always work with last-minute or unexpected changes.

Tip 10: Don't feel pressured to go about buddy and/or group reads in a single way.

There is no "right" or "wrong" way to go about buddy and/or group reads. You can always do a combination of ways to go about it, such as texting/messaging after each chapter and meeting in person once you're done with the book. (This is only one suggestion, of course.)

6 Questions to Ask for Organizing and Managing a Buddy Read

I was looking through some of my posts in early June when I came up with an idea. I was looking through my post 12 Tips for Approaching a Goodreads Reading Challenge (Or Any Reading Challenge) when I read the 7th tip. The 7th tip was to do a buddy read or two if you have friends and/or family members who are readers.

Buddy reads can be hard to set up, organize, and manage. Even if you want to do it, it can be daunting to break into it and start doing buddy reads. Hopefully, this post will help in setting up and run a buddy read or two. Here are 6 questions to ask for organizing and managing a buddy read.

Question 1: What are you going to read?

Deciding on what you'll read is probably the most important question to answer. It'll be easiest to choose a book everyone in the buddy read has a copy of. However, there are ways to go about doing a buddy read if not everyone has the book. (I.e. the library, loaning apps like Libby and Overdrive, if someone has an extra copy, etc.)

Question 2: Are you going to set a pace for the read?

Is everyone going to try to read a chapter a day, or are you all going to read it in your own time? Answering these questions will help you decide how you'll go about reading the book in the buddy (or group) read. Also, deciding if you'll do any reading when you meet up is a good thing to decide if you decide to meet up.

Question 3: How are you going to meet up?

Are you going to meet up in person or virtually? If you meet up in person, where are you meeting up? If you're meeting up virtually, are you doing it via a phone call, Zoom call, or another virtual meet-up application?

Question 4: When will you meet up?

Will you meet up regularly during the buddy read during the time you're reading? If so, when? Deciding on when you'll meet up can be time-consuming because we all have lives outside of the buddy read. However, it can be so useful to have this all sorted before you begin your buddy read.

Question 5: Will you meet up during the time you read the book?

Reading the book together, in real-time can be a fun aspect of a buddy read. Whether you meet over a call, FaceTime, Zoon, another call app, or in person, deciding when and how you'll meet up to read the book can be fun to do. And you'll have someone, in the moment, to turn to with certain scenes.

Question 6: Will you meet up when everyone is done with the book?

Meeting up when everyone, including yourself, is done with the book gives you the opportunity to go over and discuss the book one final time during your buddy read. It doesn't matter what exactly about the book you discuss, but it can be a nice little wrap-up to the buddy read. (Of course, you can always talk about the book later, but this is in relation to the buddy read itself.)

Buddy and/or Group Reads over Zoom

This is something that my family and I started back in March. We're all huge fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's work, and one of my uncles had the idea to meet monthly over Zoom to read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which consists of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. That's what inspired today's post.

I think this was one of the best ideas my family has had. Many readers already buddy or group read, but in today's world, it can be hard and unsettling to meet up in person to discuss the book. Using Zoom allowed my family to read The Hobbit together. It also allowed for my younger cousins to hear how such a text is read. It gives my entire family more time with each other, connecting over a piece of literature that we all love.

Even if you're only buddy reading with friends, and even if it's just one other person, I highly recommend using Zoom at least once during your buddy read. You don't have to read the text aloud as my family does. However, reading the same book together at the same time means you have more opportunity to share ideas, look deeper into possibilities, and get fresh perspectives. Even if you're not reading at the same pace, setting aside time - maybe 1 hour - to read the book together over Zoom can be so fun during the pandemic.

Yes, if you only have two people, it can be easier to use different communication tools - text, FaceTime, voice call, etc. However, I do recommend trying out Zoom once or twice, and here are six reasons why:

1. It allows you to have direct communication with no delays.
2. It's just friends or family, so having your camera on isn't a huge issue (even when you aren't feeling 100%).
3. It's easier to manage buddy/group reads of 3+ people.
4. You have the chat feature as well as your microphone just in case you're in a situation where you can't speak.
5. With the camera on, you can see people's immediate - and I mean immediate - reactions to specific scenes in the book.
6. Zoom has a breakout room feature. If you're in a group read of 4 people, and 2 people are in one spot while the other 2 are in a different spot, you can create two breakout rooms for those two spots in the book so that spoilers won't be a huge issue.

Even if you're not using Zoom for meetings to actually read, Zoom is still a great way to meet up and have a live discussion about the book. You can set a date to have the book finished by, and then meet over Zoom on that date to discuss the book. (That way, you avoid the issue of spoilers.)