A friend is setting up a theme-based book club in Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills in the St George area of Sydney — not that one in California.

Theme-based. (Not genre-based. Or fiction or non-fiction. Or classics or prize-winners.) Is that unusual? Can anything be unusual in book clubs?

The under-one-hour-reading-club, based on something that takes only 45 minutes to read? (We liked: “There comes a time when even the most ideal group [think stimulating novels, insightful members, priceless wines, organic caviar, a live harpist in the corner who strums ethereal notes after every comment] gets a little stale or a little intimidating to outsiders.”)

Meeting in restaurants?

Watching movies based on books?

A book club devoted to a single novel (Finnegan’s Wake), and running for over 18 years? “[Words] are alive. They elbow their way on to the page, and glow and blaze and fade and disappear.”

Or, from Laura Randall’s summation: Reading the same book during bus rides across town? Twitter-based groups? Book clubs for the homeless?

Rather than everybody reading a set book, or not reading the set book and feeling guilty, each month the Beverly Hills Theme Based Book Club will meet and discuss a book that relates to the month’s … theme. You don’t have to buy a new book each month; just discuss those you know and love.

If you are around Beverly Hills on the second Sunday afternoon of the month, from 2 to 4 pm, the first topics are:

• October 11. What makes a book funny — bring your funniest book along.
• November 8. Which was the book you remember best from your childhood?

RSVP: gernmart@optusnet.com.au or call 0419 449 590.

The Chicago Tribune has suggested how to build a better book club.

But we are still happy with our favourite book club, Spineless Wonders’ online Bookclub, next focusing on Dancing on Your Bones by Rebekah Clarkson.

Or, if we are feeling all read out, we’ll watch TV. ABC of course.

Whatever the theme or location a book club chooses to adopt, the core premise that brings everyone together remains largely the same, notes LitLovers founder Molly Lundquist.

“It’s still about deepening relationships through a love of books.”