Book Barbecue!

by

Lauren Roberts

Is there anything better than a summer Saturday spent with good friends, a good book and good food? Not that I can think of.

A summer get-together on my front lawn sounds wonderful. Making it a reading party will make it intriguing. Sure, we’ll talk and laugh and barbecue and eat and drink wine, but we’ll also each have a book we’ve specially chosen for the party—one we are reading or one we want to start. And for about an hour, we’ll read as we bask in each other’s company and in our books. Unlike a book club, discussion is not mandatory, though I suspect we will end up talking about them for a little while.

Now you might think that getting deeply involved in reading a good book (not a group activity) doesn’t really go with firing up a party, but if your guests are all passionate readers it can make for a delightful time. I encourage you to take a weekend this month or next and try it too. Here’s a guide as to how I am doing it.

First, I decided on my guest list. The one thing the invitees had to have in common was a love of reading. It wasn’t hard. Not everyone I know is a reader, but most are. (The spouses who may not be fanatical readers can chat over the wine and grill.)

Second was the menu. It had to be simple, “prepare-able” in advance, not overly messy (to avoid damaging books) and delicious. It also had to satisfy the vegetarians as well as the meat eaters and the dieters as well as the indulgers. And it had to mean no stove time on the day of the event. I think I did rather well.  

Third, the invitations. I sent these out by e-mail earlier this week, asking people to let me know which dates they were available:

Please join me for a Book Barbecue! No, it's not to burn books. I am thinking of having a summer reading party. What I’d like to do is host a barbecue party on my front lawn on an August Saturday afternoon. There will be lounge chairs, a wonderful shady tree, plenty of great food and convivial company. We will have my famous gazpacho, a green salad, a fresh fruit salad, portobello mushrooms, steaks and chicken on the grill, chilled artichokes and dessert (ice cream?) along with good wine, perhaps bread and cheese, and bottled water or other soft beverages. Mostly it will be a chance to meet one another, have fun, share laughs and enjoy a great day.

Each of us will bring a book we are currently reading or want to read and spend about one hour (or whatever works) reading our choices. It won't be a book club; there won’t be any focused discussion. But if we want to share our thoughts, great. Reading is the kind of thing we all like to do and I thought it would be fun to do a bit of it as part of this barbecue party.

As for my book, I’ve already picked it up: Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff. I saw it when browsing at my local independent yesterday, and couldn’t resist. An adventurous travel memoir rich with culture, history, gender, and physical and psychological snares, it’s one of my favorite types of reading. It is hard not to pick it up and start gulping it down now. But I told myself (as I laid out my credit card) that it was for the party, that I have plenty of books already awaiting my attention and that I would wait to read it.

How about you? Are you ready for a book barbecue with good friends, a good book and good food? Then roll out the invitations—and don’t forget mine.


Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, 800 bookmarks and approximately 1,000 books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She is a member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) and Book Publicists of Southern California as well as a longtime book design judge for Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. You can reach her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it