Questions you were too afraid to ask when starting a book club in Lagos

Last month, a woman came into the shop, lingered around the fiction section for a while, and then walked up to the counter. "I'd like to start a book club," she said, pausing before adding, "but what if nobody shows up?" The look on her face — like she was proposing something illegal. I held back a laugh and told her, "I felt the same way at first."

Four book clubs have been born in my bookstore so far, and three of them are still going. One quietly faded away — not because of the books, but because of subtle tensions over where to meet. I'll tell that story another time. Point is, through this process I've noticed the same questions coming up over and over. Most of them are too specific to google and a little too embarrassing to ask a friend.

How many people is actually the right number

"The more the merrier" is a lie when it comes to book clubs. Especially when you factor in Lagos traffic. Getting someone coming from Victoria Island to Yaba, someone from Lekki, and someone from Ikeja to all show up at the same place at the same time is a small miracle. In my experience, between six and ten people works best. With four or fewer, one absence shakes the whole group, and with more than twelve, it stops being a conversation and turns into a lecture.

Start with three or four people you're close to, and have each of them bring one person. Setting up a WhatsApp group first and gauging the vibe is another approach. Just make sure you set rules early so the group doesn't balloon into a 50-person chat room. You don't have to go as far as banning meme sharing, but at least draw a line like "book-related talk only."

The meeting place problem, honestly

A lot of people ask, "Can't we just do it at a café?" You can. But most cafés in Lagos are packed on weekend afternoons, and some have music loud enough to swallow any conversation. Certain places require a one-drink minimum per person instead of a seating fee, and there are definitely members for whom spending 2,000–3,000 naira on coffee or smoothies every month is a real stretch.

The best setup I've seen is rotating between people's homes. The host doesn't need to prepare anything elaborate like jollof rice. Water and a few bags of chin chin are more than enough. The key is creating an atmosphere where people feel comfortable speaking freely — not catering. If hosting at home isn't an option, a bookstore or library works too. One group regularly uses my bookstore on Saturday afternoons. There's air conditioning, plenty of books — what more could you want.

Choosing the book can become a fight

This is one of the most common reasons book clubs fall apart. If one person keeps picking the books, everyone else starts feeling like they're sitting in a class. But if you vote every time, minority tastes get buried forever.

The smoothest approach is taking turns recommending. That month's recommender puts forward two or three candidates, and the rest pick one. The recommender's taste gets reflected, and everyone else still has a say.

If you're interested in Nigerian literature, many groups start with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, but I'd hope they don't stop there. Writers like Ayobami Adebayo, Leye Adenle, and Oyinkan Braithwaite are also brilliant for book club discussions. If a snobbish attitude towards genre fiction starts creeping in, nip it early. A book club is not a literary judging panel. Some months you want to read a thriller; other months you want to read poetry.

What if people show up without reading the book?

They will. It's inevitable. And it's not the end of the world.

One book club that meets at my store uses a "you can attend if you've read at least half" rule. Better for someone to come having read only half and join the conversation than to skip entirely out of guilt for not finishing. If a member shows up two times in a row without having read anything at all, a quiet private message — "it's okay to take a break if you've been busy lately" — does far more for the group's atmosphere than calling them out. Do that publicly and the vibe instantly turns into a school assembly.

On a Saturday afternoon, when I overhear someone at a table in the corner of the bookstore say, "I only got through 50 pages of this month's book, but I came anyway" — that's the sign of a healthy book club. The real measure isn't the completion rate but the attendance rate and the quality of conversation.

Costs are minimal. Mostly just the price of books — and in Lagos there are secondhand bookstores, and honestly, quite a few groups pass around PDFs. It feels a bit awkward for me to say that as a bookshop owner, but reality is reality. Some groups collect 500–1,000 naira per month to cover snacks and drinks, and sorting that out early is the way to avoid awkward money conversations later.

A book club isn't sustained by a perfect system but by the light habit of thinking, "Maybe I'll go again this month." That woman who nervously asked at the counter is now two months into running a group of six. The book she came in and bought last week was a thriller.