In this article, the author talks about establishing a book club comprising international students and scholars and other members of the community interested in improving their English language skills. This book club, free to participants (although sponsored by the English Language Institute of the author's university), ran for ten weeks each over two summers. The club was created to help international members of the university community improve conversation skills. But the successes went much further than that, and ultimately the groups dug into American history, culture, values, and stories and, as time went on, also felt a real sense of community. And while this particular group met in the United States and stimulated dialogue about this country, it became clear over the course of these endeavors that such a club could be even more valuable to communities of English language learners abroad. The author discusses the creation of the book club and its goals, how she selected texts for the club, and the dynamics of the book club, including the difficulties she faced in allowing her facilitating and planning work to be secondary to the conversations the participants wanted to have.