Improve your life today! Join a book club.

US News and World Report said that joining a book club is one of the top ways to improve your life. Does this surprise you? When my friend Moses shared this report with me and the rest of our book club, it came as no surprise at all. As the book "Bowling Alone" observes, Americans are much less likely to join gardening clubs or rec sports leagues than they were a generation ago. Instead, we're much more likely to watch TV and be disengaged from our communities, and as a result, our social fabric has become much more thin. Book club brings people together for a gathering that is not completely social, not completely work- or task-driven, but a little bit of both.

Here are the details of my group. It was created by my Google co-worker and his friend who, in her day job, does research with an institute at the U of M business school. Our mission is to focus on books that discuss business and social responsibility. You may think that, with such a narrow focus, our book options are limited, but in fact after one year we still have more books we're eager to read than we have time for! Our picks have ranged from the relatively academic (Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, which traces the life-cycle of a China-manufactured shirt), to The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has become very popular in the media and in "eco-gastronomic" circles.

Our club meets every month at a different house every time. Members are relaxed enough that the decision of where to host and what to read next gets determined at the end of each meeting, and what doesn't get settled is discussed online via our Google Groups forum. (You may have heard of book clubs feuding over book choices like in the article "Fought Over Any Good Books Lately?", but our club is completely drama-free.) We also use our core discussion group as a launching pad for other activities. For example after reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, we toured a local farm and did a bit of weeding, and after reading a book on new urbanism, we invited a business-school professor to discuss local real estate and urban development trends with us.

Ever since graduating from college, I've looked for ways to keep exploring with my mind and get connected with people outside my usual circles. I've done this by listening to lots of NPR (and watching the great TED Talks videos online), volunteering, and pursuing exciting projects at work, but the greatest of all these is my book club.