A Fun & Successful Book Club With Mom? Launch Yours Today In 4 Easy Steps!

A Mother + Daughter Book Club is a fun, thoughtful way to spend time together. Bonus: it’s easy to do, even if you live far apart!

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Our words float across nearly 1,000 miles of phone line. She laughs at my jokes, I tell her about my week, we say our “I love you’s.” Yet sometimes when the call ends, I wonder if my mother and I really just spent an hour talking about nothing more memorable than the weather?  

Maintaining a vibrant connection with our moms over long distances can be…hard. Our bustling, messy adult lives make quality time together scarce. Do you, like me, want a fresh way to nurture your relationship with your mom? 

• Wanted: More fun, quality time together.
• Needed: Some serious creativity because, well…that distance thing!
• Solution: The Mother + Daughter Book Club!

Give your own mother (or daughter!) a fun gift of time together, whether she lives next door or on the next continent. Everything you need to know to successfully launch your book club is organized in 4 easy-to-follow steps (complete with book suggestions!). I’ve even created a free quarterly book club planner to help you get started!

Don’t miss the all-important W·O·L Twist, where you’ll find heaps of great ideas to enhance your book club experience.

Read on — your fun awaits!

4 Easy Steps To Organize Your Mother + Daughter Book Club

1. Present It With Flourish

This book club you are starting is a gift, so treat it as such. You are gifting your mom a bit of yourself and your time, but it is also a gift to you. This time together is a thing of value and a thoughtful presentation will reinforce its importance to both of you.

• Wrap it up. Choose the first book you’ll read together and buy it for her. Write a lovely card explaining why you want to do this fun book club with her. Wrap it all up in a beautiful package!
• Present it. If you can deliver the gift in person, make the presentation special — meet her for lunch or plan a day out together. But even if distance makes that impossible, the effort you’ve put into pretty wrapping will speak volumes when it arrives in the mail.

2. Decisions & Details: Where, What, & When

Are you geographically close enough to meet in person? Lucky you! Simply pick a place and time that works for you both. Coffee, cocktails, or cuisine — this is your time together, so make it special!

If you can’t get together in person, there are still loads of ways to make this time unique. We learned during the pandemic we can do almost everything online. Decide what you would do together if you could and replicate it. Make or buy that fancy coffee, cocktail, or cuisine, and enjoy it together in front of your screen (Zoom, Facetime, whatever your video service of choice). Not quite as exciting, perhaps, but still fun!

3. Your Mother + Daughter Book Club Needs Books!

I spent almost two months selecting eight books for our book club — yikes! Don’t worry, it won’t take you that long because I share several options with you down below (and lots more in this post). For our initial selection of titles, I chose a theme (mothers and daughters) and intentionally looked for books that highlighted that relationship.

When choosing our first eight books, I had three criteria:

1. A book with a mother and a daughter as central characters to stick with the theme I had chosen.
2. A book rated highly by readers on several different online review sites.
3. A book I had not read — I need some plausible deniability if she hates my choice, right?! ?

There are as many different ways to select your books as there are readers, so be creative. Get your bookish juices flowing with these ideas: 

• Pick a theme: Choose books about food, travel, historical fiction, memoir, strong women, etc. Your theme can be for just a few books or for as long as you’d like.
• New releases only: Choose a brand new book released in the past few months/year, however you choose to define “new.”
• Backlist books: Select an unread title from a favorite author’s backlist.
• Unread books you already own: Choose an unread book from your personal shelves and make a bit of progress climbing your very own Mt. Must Read.
• Explore your hobbies: Choose books that will inspire you to do more of what you want to do. A food memoir can send you to a cooking class, an outdoor adventure can pack you off on a camping trip!
• Reader’s Choice: Take turns choosing the book at the top of your own TBR (“to be read” list).
• Choose a monthly genre: Compile your own yearly reading guide — or use the one I’ve created for you!

These are just a few ideas to get you started. Like all readers, I love hearing why people choose to read the books they do. Would you tell me in the comments which titles you are selecting?

4. To Question or Not To Question?

Just how formal or informal you want your discussion to be is completely up to you. To ensure there is plenty to talk about, you can mark passages and write down questions as you read. Or you can just share how you felt about the book then pour more wine — hey, it’s your book club and the only rule is that you both enjoy it!

Now the Fun Part: The Words On Location Twist!

Words On Location is all about enhancing your reading experience with off-the-page fun, so don’t forget to find that something special to bring your book club to life, aka the W·O·L Twist. Jumpstart your creativity with these suggestions:

• If your book is set in an area near you, spend a fun day out exploring a place from the story.
• If the setting is too far away but something similar is accessible, go for it! If you read The Last Bookshop In London or The Christmas Bookshop, find the oldest bookstore in your area and spend a few hours browsing. Chat with the owner if you can (and try to buy at least one book)!
• Recreate an experience from the book. For example:
  1. Daisy Jones & The Six (which, btw, is amazing on audio!) is about a ’70s rock band. Scoop up a couple of concert tickets when an old favorite group is touring near you.
  2. In Code Name Helene, the heroine’s favorite drink is a French 75 and it’s mentioned frequently. Try your hand at mastering this famous cocktail.
• Plan an event inspired by a theme or event in the book. For example:
  1. The Clock Maker’s Daughter is partially set in England’s countryside. Plan a country walk in a lovely area near to you, no trip to the UK required!
  2. Rather than simply discussing Julia Child’s My Life In France, my book club threw a dinner party and feasted on delicious recipes from her cookbook.
• Learn more about anything that enticed you while reading, whether in-person or online. We may be weary of so many virtual experiences, but no one can argue the wealth of interesting options now available to us!
  1. The Rose Code is about the WWII code-breaking ladies who worked at the highly classified Bletchley Park north of London. Explore the long-held secrets and fascinating work on the official Bletchley Park YouTube channel.
  2. If Malibu Rising left you longing for salt and sand, try your hand at paddle boarding or surfing. When you’re exhausted, collapse on the beach!

The only rule for finding your Words On Location Twist is that it is something you will both enjoy and can do “together,” whether that means physically together or connected virtually!

Titles To Launch Your New Mother + Daughter Book Club

Choosing the books you’ll read together can be both fun and daunting. To make it more “fun” and less “daunting,” I compiled this list of 15 books that would be great reads for your book club. I’ve also curated many more titles in my Bookshop.org store. My mom and I may eventually make it through them all, but we are starting with these eight titles:

• One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
• With Love From London by Sarah Jio
• The Secrets of Midwives by Sally Hepworth
• The Lost Girls of Devon by Barbara O’Neal
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
• As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meisnner
• French Braid by Anne Tyler
• Violeta by Isabel Allende

The Happy Ending

Download my free quarterly book club planner here to help you flesh out all your great ideas. You now have all the tools and inspiration needed to reconnect with your mom over a great book and an equally great experience!

Shared book fun is better book fun! I would love to see your Words On Location Twist — use #WordsOnLocation and find me on Instagram @wendy_staton.

Pin this to your bookish boards!