Like health clubs, book clubs tend to see a boost at the beginning of a new year. And folks angling to read more in 2026 have a lot of options for book clubs in Bloomington-Normal.
“I always try to make sure my January titles are real barn burners,” said Mimi Davis, a librarian at Bloomington Public Library who runs the fiction book club and a quarterly true crime club. [Full disclosure, Mimi is a friend of the author. We met at book club.]
“That’s my hook month. If I can put a really good book, or a book that everyone’s talking about, in January, I always hope that will lead to people coming back,” she said.
Formed in the 1990s, the fiction book club Davis leads is the oldest continuously running book club at Bloomington Public Library.
“What I love about the fiction book club is that fiction is so broad,” Davis said. “No matter what you’re interested in, there’s going to be a book at some point in the year that’s going to appeal to just about any kind of reader.”
Indie clubs
Several indie books clubs around the Twin Cities organize around a theme or a particular affinity group.
Good Company Counseling in Bloomington has the first meeting of its new menopause and perimenopause book club at the end of the month. For the introverts, there’s a silent book club that travels to coffee shops and watering holes around town. Members of the boutique fitness studio Body of Bloomington connected around a shared love of romance novels.
It's called the Smutty Buddies.
“Everyone comes to the studio because we are all looking for a space where we can just be ourselves,” said Amelia Jones, who coordinates Smutty Buddies and teaches group classes at Body of Bloomington.
Titles are recommended by members of the club, ranging from Hallmark romance to blush-inducing erotica. Jones has a list of questions to get conversations started and delve into critiques of the book.
“Sometimes you’ll have writers that will want to have very a in-depth, like, you need to know this background story,” she said. “I was like, I’m 10 chapters in. When are they gonna smash?”
Jones’ love of the genre has reasons both silly and serious. She grew up managing a learning disability and struggled with reading. She found romance approachable. And fun.
“It’s the escapism,” she said. “Life is exhausting. Sometimes you just need to be able to kick your feet up. I find that I scroll way too much on social media, so when I have a book, I can just disconnect. It’s calming.”
Of course, there’s homework that goes along with a book club, but Normal Public Library programming and youth services manager Rhiannon Shoults said finishing the book isn’t a prerequisite for attending a club.
“People can come from anywhere,” she said. “You do not have to have a library card [though you’ll need one to check out books].
"And no, you don’t have to have read the book to come. We’ll have a lot of people who start the book and they didn’t finish it. That’s perfectly fine,” Shoults said.
The libraries organize their clubs by genre. Shoults runs Stranger than Fiction, a non-fiction club.
“We read a lot of memoirs, but we also do history, true crime—really the full gamut,” she said.
Normal has its own romance club—slightly less smutty than the Smutty Buddies. It’s a public library, after all.
Shoults also coordinates self-paced book challenges for readers who’d rather set their own deadlines. There’s a cookbook club in Bloomington; a horror club launching next week in Normal combining books and film; a Bloomington brunch club for retirees and folks with non-traditional work schedules; and Books on Tap, a popular all-genre club that meets monthly at Lil’ Beaver Brewery.
Something for everyone
Librarian Molly Stevenson runs Books on Tap through Bloomington Public Library, and with Davis co-leads the library’s other off-site club, True Colors, exploring LGBTQ+ authors and themes.
Stevenson said folks from all walks of life come to Books on Tap—which naturally leads to a variety of opinions about each title.
“Honestly the books that aren’t as universally loved or hated—that there’s a mix of both sides—those are the best conversations,” Stevenson said. “If you all agree it’s a good book, then the conversation’s over very quickly.”
As curators, Stevenson and Davis said they have learned to go with their guts in selecting titles, knowing there might be some readers who don’t jive with a particular book or author.
“The main goal and feedback I hear from people is, ‘This is something I never would have picked on my own,’” Stevenson said. “That’s my job done.”
“Dealing with the public all the time, we’re able to hear from our patrons,” Davis said. “So, I’ve always got my ears to the ground on what books are exciting to our patrons so I can think about including those in a future discussion.”
