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Maximalist Life
This is Maximalist Life, with Brianna Gamble and Tamika Stringfellow. This unfiltered podcast is your permission slip to chase after everything you damn well desire.
Join us as we dish out no-holds-barred conversations and invite you to step into a life filled with limitless possibilities. Forget fear and embrace the maximalist mentality with us every week.
Get ready to experience piss your pants laughter, cringe-worthy truths, and be inspired to break free from living a mediocre life.
Maximalist Life
Ep 6 - Smuttier Than You Think: How to Start a Book Club
Episode Summary:
In this episode, we’re sharing our journey of starting and running our book club, Books & Bottles—the highs, the struggles, and everything in between. From picking the perfect reads to creating a space where people actually want to show up, we’re giving all the details on how we built a community around books. If you’ve ever thought about starting your own book club or just want to hear some fun stories, this one’s for you!
- 📖 How Books & Bottles came to life
- ⭐ Our favorite books so far & the ones that got the most reactions
- 💬 The unexpected friendships and deep convos that came from it
- 📝 Tips for starting your own club—choosing themes, organizing meetups & keeping it fun
- ✈️ Our unforgettable book retreat & why we highly recommend one
- 🛋️ Creating a cozy, open atmosphere that makes people want to stay
Whether you’re a book club pro or just looking for your next great read, we’ve got you. 🍷📚
Stay Connected:
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Welcome to Episode 6 of Maximalist Life. I'm your host, Brianna.
Speaker 2:And I'm Tamika, and we're here with Brianna's bangs today.
Speaker 1:That is the guest star today oh today. Yeah, I got my clip in bangs, you know. I told you guys about. I told you guys about my clip in bangs. I got them on Amazon and I'll link them in the show notes for you. But they're pretty good, right? I mean I need to like thin them out a little bit, or something yeah, I think you need me to style them a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, help me, you have to fix them a little bit yeah, but I did dye them. I dyed them. They match a lot better, so they look really good, thanks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and next episode, I'm going to wear my clip-in space buns Cute, I can't wait. That's going to be the next guest, two of them. They're twins. They're partners. Yeah, yeah, this episode. We thought we would talk about our book club.
Speaker 2:That's my favorite topic.
Speaker 1:I know we love it so much. And people love hearing, just like how our book club goes. And some people want to know, like how do I start my own book club? Or any club, any type of club, yeah, yeah, if you don't like to read, that's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of people don't like to read.
Speaker 1:That's fine, or maybe, or maybe they don't know how A listening club, audio book club yeah, that's okay. Yeah, what so last year? Cause we started our book club in March. Our first meetup was in March.
Speaker 2:Technically February we started it.
Speaker 1:Because we started reading the book in February. So we read 11 books last year for book club. What was your favorite book? Well, it could be a favorite book that we read 11 books last year for book club. What was your favorite book?
Speaker 2:well, it could be a favorite book that we read at book club, or it could just be like my favorite your favorite book that you read last year at all okay, I'll go with book club there's two, because I was thinking about this, because we were going to do this episode, so I was like I already wanted to kind of like have this question, and so one of my favorite smuttiest books is Pen Pal.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:Well, actually, now that I think about all the ones, maybe Mindfuck you did love the Mindfuck series, but Mindfuck smut wasn't like that great, it was just regular.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was just a really good story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was long so it gave a lot. There was a lot of plot to follow.
Speaker 2:I think Pen Pal was like a little twist and I liked that Mm-hmm and the smut was really smutting. It was a little aggressive. She was like running through the fields and he was chasing her In a good way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a little bit almost like scary yeah in a scary way.
Speaker 2:And then I think my favorite romance romance was Love Letters to Whiskey. It was a tortured soul one, and I love that.
Speaker 1:I want it to be painful, except for the miscommunication trope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hate that One of my least favorites. I hate the third act breakup too. There's no reason for it. Yeah, it's a little bit unwing.
Speaker 1:I think my favorite book Was Done and Dusted. No, so Done and Dusted was definitely my least favorite book that we read last year. I would probably say my favorite. I really liked Verity, which I think was so controversial with our group. Like a lot of people really liked it or they really didn't. No, I think most people liked it. I thought so when we did our end of year thing. I was.
Speaker 2:I was surprised that like a few people were like I really didn't like that book and so it's not that I didn't like it. I think that I'm just like how many domestic psychological, like thrillers do I need to hear that?
Speaker 1:it's always the fucking wife I that book is so much more like Gone Girl.
Speaker 2:That's why I was just like I'm not really surprised with any of this stuff.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Yeah, yeah, you loved it, though. I did really like it. I mean I really I would say Pen Pal possibly would be a Close second, yeah, I think. So I think that was really good too. I like the ones that just have a really good story yeah, I need a little like plot.
Speaker 2:It can't just be like all we're doing is having sex constantly.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you're in the mood for that, I am sometimes yeah, I think that when they, when the authors, use it sparingly, it gives a little more shock value here and there and then you're more like excited to read that part. So, yeah, but we, uh, we are, our book club day is like our favorite day of every single month and we really like how it kind of we always say how it brought us together with all of these women that we never would have probably, you know, crossed paths with otherwise.
Speaker 2:I am probably 10 years older than a lot of them and maybe even more than 10 years years. Some of the girls are in their mid-20s, yeah and just they don't live in the same town as us. Yeah, some of them don't uh-huh, and they just have different occupations than we would come across so you know yeah, yeah. And so we found, like this core group of women that like just comes together on the first Wednesday. If you want to join our book club in here in town, it's the first Wednesday of every month at 6.30.
Speaker 2:6.30. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It just. It's like this little community. It's like this little community that we built, and it's so fun to just see our little book club friends every month. And we, I think, too, like we've made some pretty good friends out of it too that we have spent time with outside of the book club.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we invite them to kind of all of our events and stuff, because I just I don't know, it was really fun meeting people that you wouldn't really meet. Yeah, yeah, I just love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah and we. Okay. So the name of our book club is Books in Bottles, because initially, I think our idea was we were going to, like everyone would bring, like their favorite wine and we would, you know, talk about books and drink wine. And then it ended up being so much more than that. We, the very first meeting, I mean we thought no one.
Speaker 2:We thought five people would show up. We put out eight chairs and there's three of us that started the book club and we're like, ok, we're going to put out five chairs. So we don't feel us that like started the book club and we're like, okay, we're gonna put out five chairs.
Speaker 2:so we don't feel and we like put it in an area where it's really kind of small and tight yeah, where there isn't enough room for a lot of people, and you come up the stairs, right, so it's like we have these chairs and you come up the stairs and then, all of a sudden, all these people were coming and I was like oh no, and then oh no, and then there ended up being 16 people.
Speaker 2:It was like double the size yeah, and we were like shit, like, and the whole table was like full of food because we said like you could bring some like food to share if you want, or whatever. It was like full of food, full of alcohol, yeah, like we were like holy shit, this is like a thing, like I can't believe it, like you know, and some girls came like juju, juju, she's so cute.
Speaker 1:I love her.
Speaker 2:She had the cutest little earrings on remember, yeah, and she showed up and she was like I just saw this on Facebook this morning. I didn't even read the book and I brought lemonade and she's so freaking cute. And at the end I told her I was like you're so brave, you're so brave, yeah, and it was something that I would never do the book and I didn't know anyone like I'm not that brave, and I just felt in the moment like I needed to tell her that she's so brave for coming to this.
Speaker 1:But that's such like a corny mom thing to say it is, but now we say it about a lot of things yeah. I'm always like you're so brave. Yeah, it is super fun. We um that first one too. We, you know you're always a. You love doing gifts, you love making merch, and so you had worked with our graphic designer Riley to design like a little logo. For that was a labor of love too.
Speaker 2:I had to iron on 15 tote bags and it was just like I remember I kind of waited last minute and we were trying to figure it out and printing it and that's always like bullshit. I hate doing stuff like that.
Speaker 2:I mean I love it but I hate it. And so I made 15 bags and I was like, oh, don't worry, we'll have it for multiple book clubs to give away. And because we were like, oh, the first 15 people you know get a bag, just in case, and we ran out of bags, yeah, there wasn't even enough for everyone that showed up didn't get a bag, sorry, I better make her one yeah, so everyone got a tote bag and we had like little stickers and I think the stickers were later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we made what was stickers and like little bookmarks that you made later for another. Oh, the book, um, like magnets, yes, yeah, yeah, that was so cute, um, but yeah, every single month, like we said, the first wednesday of every month, we just come together and we talk about whatever book that we had picked out the previous month and everyone brings not everyone, but like most people bring like food and drinks, and we all just hang out and talk and then we have these questions about the book, of course, which we're really bad at coming up with questions.
Speaker 2:A lot of times we're just like thinking poorly. I mean, the good thing about book clubs is a lot of times there is questions already.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially if you're reading like a book talk book. Yeah, there is questions already. Yeah, especially if you're reading like a book talk book. Yeah, then a lot of those do, and there's always generic questions.
Speaker 2:You can ask like, care, like oh, what about this character like my favorite?
Speaker 1:question that we used to ask all the time is uh, who would you cast in a movie role for, like the main characters, if this was turned into a movie?
Speaker 2:yeah that's always fun um and I print out the poster boards of like little collages that kind of like gives the aesthetic. I print them out at Walgreens. It cost me like 12 bucks, so it's like pretty cheap, but everyone loves to like. Look at like a visual of the book. You know, yeah, you always make two.
Speaker 1:You always make one. That's like the cover of the book, yeah, and then yeah, of course, like we talk about the book, do the questions, but then I feel like then, towards the end, the conversation always goes towards something else and we just start bringing up like other things and people start talking about personal stuff and there's been times where people bring up. I mean, we're talking about people's trauma, we're talking about people's like dating lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, sometimes it's deep. One time it was like 20 of us here that day and everyone told how they met their spouse and it was so long and I was like what the fuck kind of support group is? Yeah, we're just like all going in a circle. It was. Yeah, it was really silly cute.
Speaker 1:Every hearing everyone's little meet cute. So I was. I want to hear everyone's story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was cute.
Speaker 1:And then like another time. I was like okay, so if every like whoever is single, because there's a few people that are single, I was just like we were like okay, you know, are you on the dating apps Like talking? About that the last time we had or maybe it was in December, that was our last one One girl was talking about. She almost was like asking for advice, like she's stuck in a situation ship and so that was like a fun and we all just it's.
Speaker 1:It makes it easy to get to know each other on a little bit deeper level and I think that's the our favorite part yeah, for sure, and it's so yeah, and so the book club, kind of like talking about the books, is almost just like an icebreaker and then yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So if someone wants to start a book club, okay, or any club, then so I think that that's where you kind of like come in and you're like, you're good with like all the back end, logistical things of like yeah, starting it and like putting it out there on like um making events on Facebook and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, okay. So if someone wants to start a club, maybe we should brainstorm let's brainstorm ideas of types of little clubs you can start that are not book club, like, if you don't want to start a book club, like wine club. Yes, yeah, our friend Riley, our little graphic designer, riley.
Speaker 2:She used to do like a wine night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our friend Riley, she, our little graphic designer Riley, she, uh, she used to do like a wine night and what she said once I don't exactly remember, it was like once a month she would invite all her friends and then they would like do wine tasting or something, and that just sounds so fun, and especially because we live near Napa.
Speaker 2:I know a lot of people don't, so it's easy access to like order stuff online. But like you definitely could do two types of things. You could just go get some bottles from some wineries, which that could be, you know, that's good. You could also go to a winery, yeah, as a field trip, you know, if you have like a wine club you know I love filters. Like we do little field trips with our book club too. We've like seen gone to like author signings and stuff that have been close to us. So like I think, little field trips here and there to like get to know each other more, where it's like you don't have to like have a book that you have to read and talk about. You kind of just get to know each other a little bit yeah, it's kind of nice some of those.
Speaker 1:Um, I think if you do other types of things like that, uh, maybe it's a little bit more low maintenance because you're just meeting up and having that activity, or get together that night where the book you have to like actually read the book ahead of time yeah, yeah, love homework.
Speaker 2:I hate homework um, but you love reading, yeah I do only if it's smutty, because then I complain like this book wasn't sweaty and then I you like an extra like five out of five chili peppers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like a really hot. Yeah, what other types of uh clubs?
Speaker 2:okay, so everyone's into sourdough making sourdough. But what if you do like a sourdough like a club, and then you guys all make your different sourdoughs making sourdough? But what if you do like a sourdough like club, and then you guys all make your different sourdoughs? Because I know people are putting different stuff on them, like rosemary like that kind of stuff, and then you guys could like make your butters and like you know, everyone could do like a tasting of everyone's.
Speaker 2:And just get together and talk about like if you're having difficulty doing this or passing around the starters are you using? Yeah, that's fun, I like it. Yeah, that is kind of stuff I mean any type of sourdough one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think it'd be fun. One that I think I could picture you doing is like a craft club, like a little crafting yeah, something you love making.
Speaker 2:My husband would hate me. Oh, because then you would like. You have to have so many craft things, you have to have a lot of supplies, yeah and my house is already full of fucking supplies he literally wants to throw the whole thing out.
Speaker 2:I know, I know, but yeah I think that that is hella fun, where you just or maybe if everyone just brings a little bit, then not one person has right, yeah, so like, if, like, you changed it every month, right, like you're gonna do charm bracelets and then the next time you would do I don't know what's another thing you make those little dishes oh yeah, catcher what are those called?
Speaker 1:like a catch-all yeah or yeah, yeah yeah, there's so many things you could do well and then, okay, so how you were saying like, maybe it's not up to just like one person. The thing too. I think people are scared to start something like this because they feel like I don't have time to start this whole frickin. They have to be the whole love. I got the host. I have to beat my house. How does this whole so? I mean, I would say something to consider is maybe starting something like this with a friend or two who can share. They can share the responsibilities, and then you yeah, of course, you can host it at your house, but also you could go somewhere. Like you said, maybe if it's a wine club, you just pick a different winery or somewhere, or like you just go to a restaurant or a park.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you do a book club at a park, that's fun too, like you have like a little picnic every time or whatever you do.
Speaker 1:you know, if it's like a mom's group, that where you guys go walk or whatever, yeah, Anything, yeah, and I think too, if you just start it off with a culture of collaboration and make it like, okay, every month someone else gets to volunteer to host this month or something, and then that person it's like up to them to like pick the location and and then it kind of shares the responsibilities and maybe you're like the main point of contact, but it takes a lot of the, the pressure off.
Speaker 2:I just got approached with sparked that there's like a mom's group. I think it's moms of Solano County okay, where they're doing a Galentine's party and so they do these meetups or whatever. And she said the girl that's hosting so she runs the group. This lady that reached out to me, but obviously someone else is hosting at her house yeah, so the lady doesn't have to, the one that runs the group doesn't have to host every time.
Speaker 2:And they asked me to come and do my charm bar and like buy permanent jewelry there for like all these, like 15 women. They're gonna have mimosas, they're having like a party together. So it seems like their club or group or whatever. They do different things and it's not just like one thing too. They don't have like a running theme, like a book club or a wine club. It's just like they get together and then whatever is going on that month, that that's what they're going to do. That's really smart.
Speaker 2:So it's, like you know, just a group of friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that so she started that moms. It's a long group, but I think, like posting it in moms groups, like we have one called back of moms where there's thousands right and so posting in there and just being like, I want to like create a group and I think you'll get like oh, for sure. People in there like posting in those local groups.
Speaker 1:I hate posting those local groups.
Speaker 2:I don't know why. I just feel like people get at you man.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Cause there's some little, you know keyboard bullies, yeah.
Speaker 1:So but posting something fun like that I don't see how they would get at you, but still find a way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't want to post in there much, but yeah, I think that's a good way to put the feelers out, yeah Well, and also that's a good way to promote it.
Speaker 1:So once you kind of get your idea going and you get your little club going, I mean you're going to want to promote it somewhat. It's something where, like for us, now that we have, like we said, this core group of girls, we don't really promote it anymore. I mean it's easy for them to just like if they want to bring a friend who's interested or someone hears about it. We do have, like a flyer in our window here at the studio.
Speaker 2:And we've had some people, like maybe four or five women, say like I saw it and then I just decided to come.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they saw the flyer in the window, really promote it anymore? Yeah, and I think and uh, and it just depends on, I guess, what your goal is with it. Like we don't promote it because it there becomes a point, because it's a book club specifically, and that that requires a lot of discussion, where almost the whole group has to be discussing it.
Speaker 2:I mean you can't have 50 people yeah, I, yeah, even though Brianna was like yeah, we're just gonna have so much more people and at one point we had, I think there was 26 or 28 people and I said we're gonna have to create a wait list, like if this continues this way and we get over 30, because I remember that specific night was really tough for like a conversation it was, and so I had said, like one, if we hit 30, we will have to do a wait list and you have to sign up, which, like I, don't really like that kind of club, I know where it's like oh, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to make it yeah but like it is what it is, because that's the type of like discussion we have to have yeah, or you have to find some type of solution, which I mean.
Speaker 1:This isn't ideal and, of course, this is like double the amount of work, but it's like we had talked about. Okay, potentially we, if we have too many people, we could do like two times a month where we have.
Speaker 1:I mean, like kill yourself, but yeah, um, yeah, I mean you just have to figure out whatever. But promoting it in the beginning if you want to get more people involved, yeah. Posting it in any of those Facebook groups, posting it obviously on your own personal Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or any type of social media, is really easy to do.
Speaker 2:And I think you shouldn't feel disappointed if only three or four people like take advantage of that like talking and getting to know those people, like that's what we had said in the beginning of ours. Like what if only three or four people show up? So what then? Like you know, the next time there might be more, you know that person's gonna bring a friend because she thought it was fun or whatever.
Speaker 1:Like that's okay if there's only a core, like four people that come to your thing, because that I think that that's more intimate and it makes it a lot of fun too yeah, it's just a different vibe when you have a smaller group versus a larger group and you have to remember to like just being excited about doing it because it's something you want to do. Like you want to read that book anyway, so you're going to read it, and then you want to talk about it with someone, so you can talk about it with these. You know three people who showed up and that like just be excited about that and how fun that is without being like oh, I wish there was 15 people.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter, just build up to that, it's fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and then I guess too. So, like, some things you have to consider is just kind of like how to run it or how to organize it, which makes it less stressful. So I like to, you know, I like to make lists yeah, you do, I love a good list and make lists. Yeah, you do, I love a good list and and I like a good workflow. So I like to make I made a little list, a little workflow of like, okay, every month, every time we meet, these are the things we we do, and we just kind of started with writing down what we already were doing in the beginning. So like, for example, the beginning of every meeting, we ask if there's anyone new, is anyone new?
Speaker 2:and then we have like a couple questions yeah, if anyone, if anyone's new uh, how did they find us and what is like it could be like your favorite book this year or like your current read. Just like a little icebreaker question for them too. Yeah, some book related something yeah um.
Speaker 1:So once we kind of introduce the new people, then typical, I mean, depending on what's happening, if we have any like little announcements about things like our book retreat, which I definitely want to talk about um, we'll talk about any announcements at that time.
Speaker 1:But then we kind of go straight into talking about the book and we're always kind of started off with like, okay, who read the book first of all and who liked the book? Because here's the the thing too, like even if you do a book club and you don't read the book that month, that's fine, you can still go. Like you should still just go to stuff like this. It's just like the social aspect of it is what's so fun, yeah, yeah. And so we ask like who has read it, who liked it? And then we go into specific book related questions which, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of more like current or trendy popular books. If you just google them and you put the title of the book and then book club questions at the end of it, a lot of times you can find oh, there's this girl too on tiktok.
Speaker 2:I just seen a post, or might have been instagram, I can't remember. I think it's called um now I can't remember the name. It's like open book club or something like that.
Speaker 2:We We'll get the name and she actually. So she has a book club and so the book that she reads, she makes these like magazines full of questions for you and then she'll mail them out to you and then, like you kind of be, you are kind of like interacting with her book club a little bit, and so she already has all these and it's like a cute little magazine. Like it's funny too, I feel like when she told the story she said she had made them and then she's never put them out in the world and they just sat underneath her bed for a year and then she finally was like I'm going to do it. Yeah, and I love that. I love hearing those kinds of stories. I mean, that's of course you know, and so she is. And so I feel like maybe we should read one of her books.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll definitely. We'll definitely get the link for that and we'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, yeah, yeah For sure, um, that sounds really cool. Yeah, I and I. So, as far as like book club questions, I mean, you said too, there's also generic questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can just be like how do you feel? Like you know, I don't know what mm-hmm like, there's a website most likely like or like oh yeah, like that, like, yeah, yeah yeah, just super generic questions that you could put out yeah, and we have, I'm gonna also.
Speaker 1:I'll link another website which again, of course, I can't think of the name, yeah, where it's all about. It's actually a website that helps you start a book club, mmm, and they have a blog with all these blog posts and one of the posts is like here's a bunch of they give you a list of general book club questions, but then they also have like genre specific questions.
Speaker 1:So it's general, but in relation to romance books, or whatever and so I will put the link for that too, so that might kind of help you out a little bit. One thing thing that I would just a side note that I would recommend so is I noticed so even now, with having the book club for a year, typically the beginning of the meeting, you know, people are kind of social and they're talking a little bit and like, oh hey, nice to see you a little bit, and then once we kind of start talking about the book, it's like no one wants to answer the question first. So I would suggest, have your questions and then have your answers kind of prepared a little bit, or be prepared to be the first one to to chime in, and then it just helps everyone, feel like okay, they can like feed off you a little bit.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I kind of think that too.
Speaker 1:But maybe this, you know they can- agree or disagree, it helps to get the conversation going, so don't feel discouraged if you're like I don't. People aren't really talking, I don't. It's not that they're not having fun, but a lot of people just don't want to be. They don't want to be the first one and also with our book club.
Speaker 2:I would say we run out of questions halfway through and then we're like we didn't really even talk about this fucking book. But really everyone just wants to hang out with each other. Yeah, yeah, so it's like we did talk about it and then everyone's like okay, I mean, we talked about it, we answered all these damn questions Like let's talk about other things, or like then I always go.
Speaker 2:So then I always kind of have like a little thing prepared for that. I always go what's everyone reading Every book club. Once everyone seems like done with that book, I just go what's everyone reading, yeah, and then we kind of go into that to that a little bit, you know. So it's still like books, but not like everyone. I don't want everyone to be bored, yeah, for sure, or we take a food break.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we always take a little intermission. Once we're done talking about the book, we're like, hey, everyone like yellow shots. Oh my god, this one girl, ashley, who comes to our book club, she always the books.
Speaker 2:She always hates all the books. So nice that she comes because she hates every single book. But we're reading her book this month.
Speaker 1:She hates the books and I also think she hates taking our group photo like. But she, you know, she does all the things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she shows us here and she brings jello shots I don't take a long time to make and she brings people, like she encourages people to come. So it's just it's just so much fun, and I was gonna say too so again. If you, it's just so much fun and, um, I was going to say too so again. If you're not doing a book specific club, I would suggest, like, even if you're doing a craft club or even like, come up with some questions that are kind of like icebreakers and things that you can talk about and I would definitely utilize chat GPT for this and just say, like what kind of club you're doing, what kind of people are going to be there, and then come up with some icebreaker questions for me and that can kind of give you a little starting point for that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, as far as back to kind of like running the meeting, organizing it, stuff like that, we do have. We have a little Instagram chat for our book club and so everyone who's in our book club is in that chat, and then that's the place that we typically are communicating with them, and so we're saying like, okay, just a reminder, book club's coming up. We put a little poll of like how many people are coming. So we get an idea how many chairs we need to set up. Or if someone's bringing food, they have an idea like how many people are coming. So I think, as far as communicating with people, I think that's probably the hardest part. So I think, as far as communicating with people, I think that's probably the hardest part, because you just have to decide on how you're going to do it.
Speaker 2:So all of your communication is in one place. Yeah, like if you're going to do an email, which I think that having that Instagram group chat is like the best, because you see how many people have seen the post. That's true tech the thread or whatever, yeah, the post and then you, everyone, can respond. Also, there's not green bubbles in my text messages and like you have to.
Speaker 2:Like you know, when you're doing a group message on your phone, typically like if there's green bubbles, which you're not gonna have, how many people are in that group, like now that we have?
Speaker 1:in the instagram group there's like 85.
Speaker 2:you're gonna have some green bubbles, which also means people can't come in and out.
Speaker 1:Oh so you're saying like if you do it on your phone and you do a group text, yeah, you can't take people in and out.
Speaker 2:It just has to go and like I don't want that on my phone too. It's like you want to only look at it whenever you want to look at it, and so you could just go to instagram and look at it. So I think that the instagram group chat works really well it does because, also, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:Like, you know, if we put a poll on instagram, people can like, vote on there, and yeah, you like, you get notifications that people are voting or whatever, but again it's just in that app. It's not like. Imagine if you said send a freaking text to all of these people and you're like who's coming to book club? And then everyone's like I am. I am, I'm not because and you just have this obnoxious, you know group chat going all the time also yeah, I don't like that girls in our group chat.
Speaker 1:They love to share tiktoks and instagram reels that are like book related and. And so that's a good place for people to just like, share, like funny memes or things, and it's again it's not blowing up somebody's text messages.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think the Instagram chat or, if you want to do it, if you're more of like a Facebook person, you can make a Facebook group and that's a really good, because I actually I know we're not doing the Facebook group, but I almost think a Facebook group would be better, because you can create events within the Facebook group too, and you can message people in there and you can send reminders, and then you still have the discussion portion on there as well. Also, things don't get as lost. In a Facebook group. You can easily it's searchable, whereas an Instagram chat is not searchable to go back and find, like a particular post or post by a particular person. So, whatever is easiest for you, just pick one platform to kind of keep all the communication in one place, and that it makes it really easy, right, right, yeah, so I don't know, do we have anything else?
Speaker 2:well, we did our book retreat or retreat, yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna talk about is our book retreat, okay? So we decided halfway through the. Actually, when did we decide? In june, so our first meeting was in march and then, by like june, everyone was like hanging out. We're like what, if we do a book retreat, it seems crazy, right, but you see them all over tiktok, so and like pinterest and all these things.
Speaker 1:What is a book retreat?
Speaker 2:a book retreat is when you go to a place and you have fun, okay, with all your best friends, all your best book friends, yeah, okay a book retreat is when you go to a place because it could be any place, right, and you, I mean, I don't really know. This is how we did it.
Speaker 1:We had five books, it's basically like a huge book club meeting it a weekend. It's a weekend long book club. Yeah, meeting, yeah, so um we picked Tahoe City.
Speaker 2:We picked a cute house in Tahoe City, an Airbnb an. Airbnb in November, which was magical so because when we got there, it had snowed and it felt like a cozy book retreat. It was like the perfect Pinterest book retreat in my life, you know. And so the way we did it was we picked five books and so you could read all of them, none of them or whatever, but you know, you just had to pay to come to the retreat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just we picked out the five books and then you had because it was what, maybe like five months that we had leading up four or five months leading up to the retreat that you would kind of be expected to like read the books so we could talk about because you know, we're talking about one book in like a two hour book club meeting typically three days with three whole days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So we're like, okay, read these five books so we can talk about them but even before that.
Speaker 2:So when we had discussed doing the book club that's where Brianna's kind of mind comes in she put out a questionnaire about, like you know, room situations, things you would like to do, what you could bring to the retreat like, also like food allergy, yeah, all those kind of things, little things you kind of need to know we took all that info and then we're like, okay, this is the kind of retreat we could do.
Speaker 1:Basically, yeah, see what people's interests, like we put a huge list of ideas. We're like, okay, this is the kind of retreat we could do, basically. Yeah, see what people's interests like. We put a huge list of ideas. We're like okay. So what I thought was the funniest part?
Speaker 2:was okay.
Speaker 1:So we made a list of here's a whole bunch of ideas of things we can do, and a lot of them were like we can make these charm, you know, bookmarks, we could do, puzzles, we could, and then we're like we can go on a little hike or a and we do yoga nobody picked the physical activities like nobody was wanting to.
Speaker 2:I mean I hate those things. I mean I like the yoga but I don't want to hike like, that's not really we're not doing that, yeah, and what I love the most about this house was there.
Speaker 1:There was a hot tub outside, yeah, and so we were all. But it was freezing, and so we were all in the hot tub with our beanies on, yeah, and so we had like bikinis, bikinis and beanies yeah, yeah, oh, that should be something that should be a theme for our team, that we should do bikinis and beanies, uh-huh.
Speaker 1:and so we were in the hot tub and we're just sitting there, we're talking about and I specifically remember this one point and we're just like I was sitting there and I'm just looking around Everyone's chatting and talking. We also had, like, our little drinks in hand.
Speaker 2:It started to snow.
Speaker 1:It started to just snow and we were talking about Gilmore Girls at the time.
Speaker 2:My favorite show.
Speaker 1:I was like man. This is the life.
Speaker 2:I did feel like that too. So one of the things is I had that moment when we were inside and there were girls making charm bracelets, there were girls sleeping next to me, there were girls reading and there were girls doing a puzzle and there was girls just like talking and I felt like, wow, this is such like.
Speaker 2:I felt like a sense of community a little bit in, like in a comfort and like we read these books and we get lost in this, but like we all came together and like had such like a fun time and like it was like a big slumber party.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, and I one thing that you said when we were there and that whole situation was going on, and you were like I really love that people feel so like comfortable and safe here that they like can just fall asleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they had never like I. I mean, they hung out with us for two hours, you know, for a few months, and she felt comfortable just taking a nap next to me and that I wasn't gonna do something to her, or like you know, not that I will, but you know something like that and I just don't know. Yeah, you just don't know and, like I always find that going to sleep at someone's house or something like that means that you're really comfortable with them, right, like you. Just you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Cause usually when you're in a place that you don't really know and it's with people you don't know really well, sometimes, yeah, that can manifest itself in like oh it's hard to fall asleep or like relax all the way. No, we were all so comfortable with each other.
Speaker 2:Oh man, it was so good, so we did like dinners, and we did prizes, because we typically do prizes at our book club. We have a quiz and we'll bring a prize it could be a tote bag or whatever and we do a one question. So that's something kind of fun that we've taken on Small gift, always under 25 bucks or whatever, and we rotate between the three of us and so stuff like that, like, I think those tiny little things just make your, you know, elevate your like club a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maximize it a little bit. Yeah, and one thing that we started so all of last year when we were doing the gifts, which, just to clarify, typically you and Kristen are the ones getting the prizes. I don't think I've gotten almost any of the prizes, so thank you guys. So much for covering.
Speaker 2:I already got the one for this one. It's so cute.
Speaker 1:I'm offering my space. Okay, thank you, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. Yeah, basically you're doing a need for that meeting, okay, so what was? What was I saying?
Speaker 2:Okay, so we're doing the retreat. You were talking about the retreat, the prizes. Yeah, I said, the prizes Damn it, brianna, god damn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to crop this out, but now I can't think of it. Okay, well, now what are we going to talk about?
Speaker 2:I know You're supposed to feed off me. I know, okay, so we're talking about the retreat we talked about.
Speaker 1:Oh, the other thing that we did at the retreat Okay, at the very okay, so every so, the five books that we read, okay, like you said, we talked about each one and then there was a prize for like a trivia question. So then at the end of the retreat, we made this big Jeopardy game, and so each category of the Jeopardy was each of the books, yeah, and so it was really hard, like we tried to make these hard questions and everyone was participating. It was super fun. We had like set up these little an app that you could do like a buzzer on your phone, which was super funny, and so, anyway, we made this huge thing and there were girls. I mean, they were like studying for this.
Speaker 2:They're like I'm gonna win well, I think out of the 12 people that went, there's 12 of us. Yes, okay, two girls read all the books.
Speaker 1:Only two girls um, yeah, because you have to remember they're reading these five books on top of our regular monthly book club books right, right, right, right, so it becomes, it's a little more difficult and one of the girls that. So we did the jeopardy did the jeopardy and then, at the very end, the winner. We were like let's have one big prize at the end for the winner and so we got the Kindle, kindle color, but it just
Speaker 1:came out, it just barely came out, yeah, we almost couldn't get one because they were getting like sold out everywhere we got one left in. Solano County at Best Buy, and so I bought it online and we did a little curbside pickup which I have never done, and that was freaking cool they just like bring it out to you. I'm like, I feel like a celebrity thank you so much.
Speaker 2:That's for maximizing your time. Yeah, because I don't like to walk. So I know me neither I'll run, I won't walk.
Speaker 1:I will just lay down I have fights with Drew.
Speaker 2:I'm like, why do you park so far? Yeah, he's no. I just I'm like it's like being angry but like I just get out and I'm like pissed about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what one thing that I really love about my grandpa is he would drop off in the front. He always drops us off in the front and I'm like you're dropping me off, but you're 82 years old and he doesn't have like a a handicap thing. It's not like he's gonna park in this handicapped spot and be close, like he'll drop us all off in the front and then he'll park hella far and hobble his way to the door anymore my grandpa to like I come up with, like my hands are full, but like I'm half his age and he's like grabbing everything yes from me, and.
Speaker 2:I'm like grandpa, I can take off. No, no, no, no, like doesn't even let you.
Speaker 1:You know, and I'm like, what are we doing? What are we doing? I know like every time he picks me up from the airport, he he texts me what carousel my luggage is at.
Speaker 2:So I don't even have to look he parked.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, he parks and he comes inside and he waits by the carousel and then when we're there, he has to get my luggage out of the carousel and it's so and I feel so bad because, you know, my shit's always oversized and it's like 55 pounds and I'm like it's fine, I can get. He's like no, no, no, I just make me cry, I know I don't even talk about it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I, they're just so sweet. I know, but yeah but now our smutty book retreat. Yeah, yeah, I mean. The thing too is we did a lot of smutty talk too. We played some fun games that we created, but I'm sure everyone does this where we all like, picked our. So this is stuff you could do with any book, like any club, like we.
Speaker 2:We went in a circle and we all picked our like celebrity oh my god that what they call celebrity celebrity crush, yeah boy and girl, you're celebrity and then, yeah, we put it up on the screen, since there's 12 of us, and we picked whose it was we had to guess who yeah, whose it was yeah, and that was really fun, because you just don't expect this from people like. People are just like and some people were like who the pit this? Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone's like making fun of them, and then they're like this is really who I like. Yeah, it's like, sorry, fun of them, and then they're like this is really who I like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like sorry, yeah, it's just so funny, or like some like. There was one girl who I didn't I just wouldn't have guessed whatsoever because she's married and it was like her husband and like what he looks like and what I mean. I actually we haven't met him, but she talks about him so much. I feel like we have, yeah, we have yeah, and I feel like this celebrity crush that she picked is like polar opposite of him, and so it's just like it's not the first one that comes to your mind when you were we were trying to guess.
Speaker 2:I feel like my celebrity crush. I don't think my husband looks like him, but it's in the same realm of like.
Speaker 1:That is the person that's your younger version.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it looks like my type you know, so yeah, when it's not people and you're just like wait a minute, you married this guy, but this is your celebrity crush. That's fucking crazy, I know or like you have such a range of like types.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you know, here's the thing that we're like. I don't have a range of type, you and your freedom fighters.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say I felt a little disappointed in myself because I picked my celebrity crush, which I have a few, but I picked. I was like this is my, my top one right now. And it was almost like you immediately knew it was me. And then I we started looking at his photo up on the screen. I said that's my ex-husband. That literally looks just like my ex-husband. And you're like, yeah, that does look, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, everyone has a type. Yeah, I feel like mine is my type yeah, yeah, it's so funny, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then we also did. I mean, we played like never have I ever we played rage cage we played flip cup like so many fun things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just made it really fun so you can do that and with whatever, and also you could do a retreat. It doesn't have to be something where you all pitch in for this Airbnb and you go wait for three days and because obviously you know it is difficult when people have kids which a lot of people in our group do have kids and so you have to kind of like figure out how I mean no, I guess not a lot, just me and you.
Speaker 2:No, no, who else has kids? That went on the retreat?
Speaker 1:I guess not on the road.
Speaker 2:Oh, ali, she has a daughter ali, yeah, I guess there's three in the book club, but I guess not on the retreat.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're right, you're right yeah, um, but you could also do more of like a staycation. It could be something a lot closer to home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like an all-day thing or just a one-night thing? The thing too is surprisingly it was not expensive like it was like 450 dollars we did a person yeah we did merch too, yeah, so like I got sweatshirts and beanies made with books and bottles, so that was really cute, and also I reached out to like a hundred people on Instagram bookstore owners, authors makers, all that kind of stuff, and was like, hey, this is our book retreat, would you like to sponsor or donate? And we got some dope shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um pages and playlists was like the biggest box full of it came with a book.
Speaker 2:Some like accessories, like aesthetic things, that like went with the book a playlist, bookmarks and a tote bag for every single girl and she shipped it to us and like literally she paid.
Speaker 1:We offered to pay for the shipping and those boxes are typically $50.
Speaker 2:Like she has a dope setup, so like we should put that out, yeah, like pages and playlists, and then we got tote bags and bookmarks from and stickers from other people too. I mean, people are are willing to like be part of your experience and I and and you know all those people just like sent it to us.
Speaker 1:It was so nice, yeah, yeah. And so I mean you could just make this retreat whatever you you want it to be, if you want to do something like this. I mean, like I said, we started our book club in like February, march and we didn't go on this until.
Speaker 1:November so I mean, and it might take longer too. I mean luckily. I mean I do have experience uh planning retreats and travel um within like things that we've done for the studio, like we've gone on retreats with other business owners, do like a creatives retreat. I've planned multiple uh trips with clients and things like that, so it's a little bit um easier to like know how to do that. But it could be something like I said. It could just be at someone's house, like just do a sleepover or just do a daytime thing, even, like you said, just have it be like one thing you do during the day.
Speaker 2:I've seen people just do one night Like they go somewhere like one hour away. I've seen people and they just do one night of things, like I think like if you have a wine club and you want to do that and you go to Napa for one night, yeah, spend the whole day doing like wine tasting. You do dinner, you do brunch and then you go home.
Speaker 1:I know it doesn't have to be a whole thing yeah, yeah, yeah, mm-hmm, that's so much fun, yeah, okay, so we want to hear from you guys yeah, what kind of clubs do you have?
Speaker 2:if you have any, invite me. Have you been in?
Speaker 1:any? Yeah, do you want to start one, if you need more?
Speaker 2:advice on yeah one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ask us any questions, just slide into our dms on instagram at naughty way. Maximalist live podcast and let us know all right, having fun out there? Yeah, we will see you guys next time. Titsits up, dicks out.