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I'm in a pretty low key book club. It was started by a group of people who wanted a reason to read more, and wanted to find more/different books to read. I'm pretty much the only voracious reader in the group. We meet once a month, and everyone brings suggestions to the meeting for the next book. Sometimes we have a theme for the next meeting ("Everyone bring ideas about nonfiction to read"), but mostly it's pretty open.
Someone different hosts each meeting, and that person is in charge of providing location and food (most people host at their house, but we've also met at bars), everyone else brings drinks. Usually wine. Often, if there's an impasse about what book to choose, the next host will get the deciding vote, but most people are pretty laid back and there's generally a consensus.
One thing to think about is how much you think people will actually read. As I mentioned earlier, most of my book club are not readers, so we have to stick to shorter and/or easier stuff. For instance, we took 2 months to read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (which I LOVED), and a lot of them still didn't finish it. People who haven't read most of, or haven't started the book are encouraged not to come (we do other non book-related activities throughout the month, but this is when we discuss the book, which is pretty boring for anyone who hasn't read it, and is thus more likely to try to divert the conversation). Lots of people have only been to one or two meetings.
We don't really do "other activities" -- if there are newcomers, we'll all go around and introduce ourselves, but we generally have a half hour of chatting/drinking/eating while everyone gets there, another hour of discussion, and then people start to leave. It's a book club -- do games some other time.
We don't do a lot of "discussion questions" -- we just talk about what we liked/didn't like, talk about themes, answer and lingering questions, etc. It's not a very intellectual book club, it's more about getting people to read and finding new and exciting things. A lot of us will exchange books even if we're not reading them for the next meeting.
Also, we're a mixed gender club. It's about 60/40 F/M. Some are couples, but there's a bunch of guys who are just part of the group and like to read. They're actually some of our most enthusiastic discussers.
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