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And just like that, ReadingGroupGuides.com turned 20! It’s been such a crazy year that somehow it slipped by us that the site celebrated its 20th anniversary in May. Wow! We are grateful to our readers who have made this anniversary possible. When we first started out, we were looking to create a place where book groups could find discussion guides and tools that they needed to run their book groups all in one place.

We’ve been doing some brainstorming about new directions for ReadingGroupGuides. With that in mind, we want to ask, “What would you like to see us add to the site?” We are working on details for a “Bookaccino Live” Book Club event, and we hope to have news about that in the next newsletter. If you have ideas about what you would like to see at a virtual book group, let us know. We can go a number of ways with this; we have one idea in mind right now. Through the years, some of our best ideas have come from readers, and since a lot of creative thoughts have bubbled up during the pandemic, we want to hear from you. Write me at [email protected] with your ideas; please use “RGG Idea” as your subject line.

Thanks to all of you who answered our recent ReadingGroupGuides.com survey where we looked at what your book groups have been doing during the pandemic. 59% of you are now meeting on Zoom (a platform that I am sure 99% of you had never heard of before March), while another 4% are using other online platforms. 24% are meeting in person, practicing social distancing. Only 13% noted that they had suspended all group activities for the moment.

For those 13% not meeting, 57% said that they only want to meet in person when the pandemic is “under control” to do this, but they do not require there to be a vaccine. 12% want to meet in person only after a vaccine is available. 17% need to get more comfortable with technology.