"Ernest Hemingway's Selected Letters (1917-1961)"

Before the discussion about the novel starts, and people are tucking into the finger-food and pre-drinks, you may like to hire an 'Ernest Hemingway' impersonator.  

The impersonator will be instructed to go from one group to another, with a bunch of scrolls (probably housed in an old leather satchel).  These scrolls are copies of the letters as published in the book. As he walks from one group to another, he can ask one member of the group to select a scroll, and then he can proceed to do a very fine impression of 'Ernest' reading one of the letters to the group.  This is to go on until it is time to start the discussion. (This puts another spin to the travelling minstral.)

You may not want to use an impersonator. You may just want to use an average person: which is fine.

Other books you may want to use this idea for is:

Jacqueline Kennedy's 8 1/2 hours of interviews.
An hIstorical book on the Civil War

Write down (or tweet) a haiku everyday before you go to sleep.  And when you have reached the end of the year, you can present it as a gift to your loved ones. (8/365)