Reading Group Guides Blog

Life Stories

2009-11-20T09:34:00.002-05:00

For book clubs looking for guidance on memoirs, there is a great resource at hand --- Read On…Life Stories: Reading Lists for Every Taste, which offers brief descriptions of nearly 450 memoirs, from classics like The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin to recent bestsellers like Julie Andrews' Audition. Today we talk with librarian and author Rosalind Reisner about how she selected the titles included in Read On...Life Stories, the top three memoirs she thinks will spark interesting discussions and much more.

ReadingGroupGuides.com: Read On…Life Stories is comprised of "annotated reading lists organized with serendipity in mind," you write in the Introduction. Why did you organize the titles by themes, such as "Marching to Their Own Drum: Unique Individuals" and "Outside the Box: Interesting Occupations"?

Rosalind Reisner: There are so many memoirs published --- especially in the last few years --- that it's overwhelming for readers to figure out what to read next. The lists are designed to help you sort through what's out there and find the memoir you'll love based on the subject and the writing --- what librarians call the "appeal" of a book. So I have lists of memoirs that are strong on character --- where authors really bare their souls, like the list called "Identity Papers: Discovering Our True Selves." Or, there are lists where the story is most important, like the list titled "Living to Tell the Tale: Near-Death Experiences." Other lists focus on the setting, like "Far Out: Travel to Unusual Places" or the mood, like "Backward Glance: Nostalgic Memoirs." There are 55 lists, covering a wide range of subjects, appeal and writing styles.

Readers can also look up a favorite title in the index and then see other, related titles in the list. I was also hoping that the lists would make the book fun to browse, that list names would pique people’s interests and help them expand the range of their reading.

RGG: There are nearly 450 titles featured in Read On…Life Stories. How did you decide which books to include?

RR: I looked for titles that were well-reviewed, won awards, or were listed on "best" lists. I also included some older personal favorites, like Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain and A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey, both classics in England and Australia, respectively. While I was working on the book, people would sometimes ask me how I found the titles to include and I would laugh --- my problem was making a selection out of so many wonderful memoirs! I often felt overwhelmed by the number of glowing reviews I'd read each week and race off to the library, bringing home armloads of books. I'm sure the staff at my local library wondered if I spent every waking minute reading memoirs!

That’s also why I started the website AReadersPlace.net as an ongoing resource. I wanted to have a way to continue writing about great memoirs and narrative nonfiction for readers, discussion groups, and librarians.

RGG: What are the top three memoirs you think will make for especially great discussions?

RR: I think Here if You Need Me: A True Story by Kate Braestrup would be my first choice. It's a spiritual memoir about a woman who became a chaplain in the Maine Warden Service after her husband died. Braestrup deals with life’s important questions, and her story is thought-provoking no matter what religion you practice. She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan would be a good choice for a book that would stimulate discussion and controversy, too, in some groups. It's a riveting memoir about a woman who always knew she was meant to be a man --- funny, insightful and beautifully written. It's hard to stop at just three, but I'd say House of Happy Endings by Leslie Garis would be another good choice. Garis grew up in a household of well-known writers --- her grandparents wrote The Bobbsey Twins series --- whose personal demons ravaged the family.

RGG: For book clubs that have never read a memoir, which one do you recommend as their first selection?

RR: The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway would be a good place to start. It's a classic coming of age story with an unusual setting: a sheep ranch in the Australian outback. Conway's account of her struggles to find her way to successful adulthood is wonderfully told and there’s lots of food for thought --- and discussion.

RGG: What are some lesser-known memoirs that book clubs might want to know about?

RR: I loved Drawn to the Rhythm: A Passionate Life Reclaimed by Sara Hall and can't figure out why it's not on every book group list. It's a wonderful, inspirational story about a woman who seized the opportunity to remake her unhappy life. Also The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa, by Josh Swiller, a remarkable story about a young, deaf Peace Corps volunteer who had a very unusual, life-changing experience in an African village. And I would also recommend First Darling of the Morning: Selected Memories of an Indian Childhood by Thrity Umrigar one of the most insightful coming of age memoirs I’ve read in a long time.

RGG: This year a popular memoir has been Julia Child's My Life in France, inspired in part by the movie version of Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. For those who enjoyed reading about Child's life abroad, what other memoirs would you recommend?

RR: I loved My Life in France, and I'm a big fan in general of books about experiencing other cultures. I'd suggest the following titles: Almost French: A New Life in Paris by Catherine Sanderson, about a young Australian woman who moves in with her French boyfriend and discovers that French culture is very different from what she expected. Another great title is
The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah, about renovating a wonderful old house in Morocco and in the process learning about the house's human and spiritual guardians and enemies. Also, Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World by Anthony Doerr, about a writer who moves from Idaho to Rome with his wife and infant twins and falls in love with the city.

'Tis the Season...

2009-11-20T08:23:00.003-05:00

Kicking off today on Bookreporter.com is the festive feature Author Holiday Blogs: Stories About Giving & Receiving. More than 50 authors will be sharing stories of gift giving and getting, books that have enhanced their lives and holiday traditions they love. First up is Beverly Barton, who describes two very treasured copies of the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast.

Stop by daily between now and December 25th if you need a dose of holiday cheer or a respite from the hectic pace of the season. We hope you end up discovering an author's work you want to read --- and some ideas for your gifts lists.

Book Club Longevity: The Bookers

2009-11-19T10:03:00.000-05:00

The Bookers of Henrico, North Carolina, celebrated their 20th anniversary this past September. As part of our series of interviews with members of long-running book clubs, we talk with Carol Weigel about what has kept them reading and discussing for two decades, why The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus made for a memorable discussion...and why they felt compelled to change their group's name.

Previous Book Club Longevity Interviews:
V&C (Vulture and Culture)
Farmington Woods Book Group
Thursday Night Book Club

ReadingGroupGuides.com: How long has your book club been meeting, and how was it formed?

Carol Weigel: We are an activity group of the Lake Gaston Ladies Club. (The Ladies Club has many activity groups.) Bookers was formed when a member put out a clip board and asked others whether they would like to form a book club. Only two other people showed up for the first meeting. They decided to not just read books at this book club. They wanted it to cover literature and arts and education. One of them had just received the music to the "new" Broadway hit The Phantom of the Opera and an old black-and-white video film. The next meeting had more in attendance. They watched and listened to the film and music and discussed that and the book. Ever since, the meetings have been eclectic.

The mission statement for Bookers is: The purpose of the Happy Bookers is to share a mutual love of books and reading, as well as other aspects of cultural arts and education. Here are the words of one of the organizers: "Originally, after we really became organized, the group decided to call ourselves 'The Happy Bookers' as a play off of a popular book of the day, Happy Hooker. Later some ladies objected to that, although we had a lot of laughs from everyone who heard us tell them our book club name. So we are now just Bookers."

RGG: To what do you attribute the longevity of your book club?

CW: The versatility of the group. There is something for everyone. Some members used to perform elaborate plays. Sometimes they wrote the plays, sometimes they adapted books into plays. They would perform for the Bookers and also for the whole Ladies Club. It became so popular, they had an off shoot group start. The activity group is called Stage I, and they still perform one play per year for the Ladies Club. It did not break our group apart. They now have different members with still some Bookers in their group. We still perform skits in Bookers by adapting books, but we don't take months to prepare and produce.

We also don't demand that they read one book title only and discuss it. We actually only have one general book discussion during the year. We have a variety of programs dealing with literature. If we want to have a single title book discussion, people stay after the program to do so. Last year our general book discussion was "Living British Women Authors" in tribute to Doris Lessing winning the Nobel Literature award. The discussion groups were broken down by category of fiction, romance, chick lit, children's, mystery. This year we are going to do immigration literature, specifically immigrants to the USA, in recognition of the 2010 census.

RGG: What advice do you have for other groups who would like to make it to the 20-year mark (and beyond)?

CW: Have a strong planning committee. Each time we have had a good coordinator, they've had a good planning committee. We have had some years that weren't well done and membership dropped. We currently have 67 members. Some have actually been with the group for 20 years which is so exciting to have that experience to draw from and get advice.

RGG: Tell us about a memorable book discussion or meeting.

CW: We discussed House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus last year. We felt that all the main characters had some mental illness or were suffering from depression. Well, that led to the most intimate and special book discussion. People really shared their home and family experiences with mental illness. And we didn't forget about the book, but wove the discussion into the questions we were answering.

Another meeting 12 years back was wonderful for all of us. We have always tried to have one theatre event in the yearly schedule. For that meeting we went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, which was about two hours away. We saw a play in the theatre within the museum, had lunch in the members dining room, and then visited the galleries and had a talk with one of the curators (who had worked with one of our members). It truly represented what our mission statement conveys.

Book Club Longevity: Thursday Night Book Club

2009-11-18T09:18:00.001-05:00

When Judy Silver's book club launched, she and her fellow members were new mothers...39 years ago. "We're now grandmothers who still love good literature," says Judy. "We are still going strong in 2009!"

Today we talk with Judy about the Thursday Night Book Club, which meets in West Hartford, Connecticut --- what kinds of books they read, how the group is structured, the reading selection process and more.

Previous Book Club Longevity Interviews:
V&C (Vulture and Culture)
Farmington Woods Book Group

ReadingGroupGuides.com: How was your book club formed?

Judy Silver: Our Thursday Night Book Club is in its 39th year! I was approached by the president of the Hartford chapter of Brandeis University National Women's Committee to begin a book club. I was fairly new to the Hartford area but had enjoyed leading book club discussions in St. Louis previously. Notice was sent out to members about the formation of this new group. Through the years we have had people come and go as they moved in and out of town. However, some of my closest friendships have developed through our book club. We now have about 23 people on our roster with the average number attending each month about 18.

RGG: To what do you attribute the longevity of your book club?

JS: We read excellent literature (rarely read something from the bestseller lists unless it is a remarkable book like The Kite Runner). We read a cross-section of authors writing about many different cultures and time periods. We have a high level of commitment to the group. The people in the group are serious readers.

We have one half-hour of refreshments, and then we sit down to business. Our rotation of homes, book discussion leaders and titles selected are all planned at a Pot Luck Supper
in June for the following year. Having the process carried out in an organized, fair manner lets everyone know this is a book club for the truly interested reader.

RGG: What advice do you have for other groups who would like to make it to the 20-year mark (and beyond)?

JS: Our selection process follows these guidelines:
1) the book must be in paperback
2) the book has to be of good quality literature that lends itself to discussion; this is not necessarily a "beach book" or an "airplane book," but one for which the reader is willing to stretch herself to read and discuss
3) each member can nominate one or more books, preferably having read them or have good credentials for them; the entire group then votes on nine titles for the year out of the ones "nominated." The nine getting the most votes make it to the list.

Having the above method of choosing books has kept the level of book selection high, making this a desirable book club in which to continue.

Members register for this book club at the beginning of the academic year and pay a nominal registration fee (all of which goes to our national organization of Brandeis University). Those registering for the book club must be members of the organization. A guest may visit one time before joining.

RGG: Tell us about an especially memorable book discussion or meeting.

JS: We have had so many: Magister Ludi and the Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse (many years ago!), works by Kurt Vonnegut, stories by Tillie Olson, Blindness by Jose Saramago. A personal favorite discussion of mine was when we discussed Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway one month followed by The Hours by Michael Cunningham the following month.

Book Clubs in the News

2009-11-16T12:35:00.012-05:00

In this round-up of book club news, members share anecdotes, advice and recipes. You'll meet a group that thinks not finishing a reading selection is just fine, another that finally decided on a name after meeting for two years, one that has an interesting method for selecting books picks and more.

Attleboro Sun Chronicle: A Men's Book Club? You Bet
An all-male reading group --- strangers when they first gathered a year ago at a public library in Norton, Massachusetts --- discuss Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "Very Small" Book Club Shows that Size Doesn't Matter
Find out how members of the vsbc (Very Small Book Club) use a “Genre Jar” to make book selections --- and why members "aren’t in trouble if they didn't finish the book" and actually think it enhances the discussion

Lexington Herald-Leader: Club of the century: Books Optional in 100-Year-Old Reading Group
The members of the 100-year-old Country Book Club in Versailles, Kentucky, "exist to learn, to revere books, to support each other, to laugh and to tell each other about their lives. Not always in that order, but always with those priorities."

MinnPost.com: Author Visit Do's and Don'ts
Considering having an author join your book club discussion? Here are some etiquette tips from Audra Otto of MinnPost.com's Book Club Club.

The News Enterprise: My Kitchen, Your Recipe: Members of The Ultimate Book Club Share Their Recipes
Mary Alice Holt reveals how her two-year-old reading group in Kentucky recently decided on a name --- and serves up recipes for Ultimate Book Club Pizza and other dishes.

Press-Register: Book Clubbers Share Great Reads, Friendship
The founding principle of the Carpe Diem Book Club in Alabama is "good friends sharing good books." Their reading selections have ranged from autobiographies by President Obama and Senator John McCain before last year's presidential election to recent choices by Southern writers like Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees) and Cassandra King (The Same Sweet Girls).

The Villages Daily Sun: True Crime Book Club Members Take a Break from Reading to Play Detectives
A Florida book group, which reads solely true crime tales, took a break from page-turners and put their deductive powers to the test with the sleuthing game "Crack the Case."

Book Club Longevity: Farmington Woods Book Group

2009-11-12T08:24:00.000-05:00

What makes a reading group stay together for an incredible two decades...and often even longer? Earlier this week we introduced V&C (Vulture and Culture), the first of several book clubs we'll be profiling that have done just that.

Today we talk with Mary Healey, who attributes diversity as one of the factors keeping the Farmington Woods Book Group of Avon, Connecticut, reading and meeting for 24 years.

ReadingGroupGuides.com: How was your book club formed?

Mary Healey: Although we hold our meetings at a library, our members and facilitators are from our condo community. Some have been members the entire time. We average 20 members in attendance each month.

RGG: To what do you attribute the longevity of your book club?

MH: Diversity. That is what has kept the Farmington Woods Book Group going for 24 years. The differences lie in many areas: in the age of our members, our backgrounds, our interests and our selection of books. When it was first formed the members all came from our gated condo community, but as we meet at the Farmington Library monthly everyone is welcomed. A few of the original members still come faithfully each month.

The members came to Connecticut from many areas of the country. Their experiences and travels take them to many places of the settings of our book selections, and the tidbits they offer enhance the discussion. When reading a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, it was enlightening to have a personal friend of the First Lady tell intimate stories of their times together. It added to the interest of Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time to have a woman from the Middle East join in the discussion and tell of her family still living there and to treat us to a cup of the tea from the book's recipe.

RGG: What can you tell us about meeting at a library?

MH: The books for the following month are waiting for us as we arrive. That certainly doesn't stop us from buying the book, as often the very books we read are the ones we purchase for gift giving.

Holding our meetings in a library sets the stage for a more formal discussion. Our members take turns facilitating from the list of books we selected by voting. Each month the facilitator researches the author and creates her discussion questions. The 28 women all take part. Everyone is respectful and yes, as in old school days the facilitator recognizes our raised hands.

Not for you, you might be thinking. Too formal and restricted? You should hear the laughter at our meetings! The humor is great, the discussions lively and afterwards lunch at a nearby restaurant is rewarding and more personal stories are shared at that time.

RGG: What advice do you have for other groups that would like to make it to the 20-year mark (and beyond)?

MH: My advice to having your group become a long-lasting one is to invite new members, to diversify. And very important is the book selection. The popular old and new books may be great reading, but we always ask, "Is it discussable?" We recommend that no one suggests a book without reading it first themselves. A different opinion always makes for a great discussion. All opinions are respected and everyone is treated with courtesy.

RGG: What do you enjoy most about being part of a book club?

MH: Reading groups open to us books we would never pick up on our own. What a great way to be entertained and educated at the same time.

Book Club Longevity: Vulture and Culture

2009-11-10T08:09:00.004-05:00

Over the next couple of weeks we're going to be introducing some remarkable book clubs --- ones that have been meeting for at least twenty years. We've asked members to share their insight on how they've been able to keep the momentum going and what recommendations they have for other groups that would like to make it to the two-decade mark...and beyond.

First up is an interview with Marion Miller, whose book club, V & C (short for Vulture and Culture) in Far Rockaway, New York, has been in existence for nearly 35 years. There are still five original members in the group.

ReadingGroupGuides.com: How was your book club formed?

Marion Miller: My book club started as an offshoot of a study group that I belonged to. I found that the members preferred talking about books rather than issues, i.e. the welfare system. Our first meeting was held on a cold winter's night in front of a roaring fire. We all arrived in our pajamas and bathrobes. This was a group of about four or five neighborhood women. We were friends and acquaintances. However, at each meeting another neighbor asked to join. Since this was more than 30 years ago we were able to meet by day, as we were all stay-at-home moms. As time went on most of us returned to the workforce and so our meetings returned to an evening format. Due to various circumstances (relocation, death, etc), we've had to add new members.

RGG: To what do you attribute the longevity of your book club?

MM: We all belong to a Sisterhood at our local Jewish Center, so finding new members is not difficult. At one time there were at least three different book clubs, but now we are down to one group of nine.

RGG: What advice do you have for other groups who would like to make it to the 20-year mark?

MM: My advice to book clubs is to give everyone a chance to talk unless they veer from the topic at hand. For this problem you need a sergeant-at-arms! When we first started there were always a few people who did not read the book, and they would try to divert us from the topic at hand.

RGG: Tell us about an especially memorable book discussion or meeting.

MM: One of our most memorable meetings was when one of our members, a science teacher, suggested we read Lives of a Cell. She thought it was great, and we hardly understood it and had a hard time keeping straight, serious faces. Another time someone suggested the first book of the Old Testament. This too was a problem. When we tackled Dante's Inferno we invited a professor friend to do the review.

We meet about 10 times a year and go out for dinner once a year. When you are the hostess for a meeting you choose the next book. In this way we do not waste time arguing about a book. At the next meeting the person who chose the book gives a summary and info about the author and then a discussion is opened. This works for us.

Talking with Keith Desserich about NOTES LEFT BEHIND

2009-11-09T09:58:00.003-05:00

As Brooke and Keith Desserich share in Notes Left Behind, their six-year-old daughter Elena was diagnosed with pediatric brain cancer and died just nine months later. As Elena lost her voice and the ability to walk, she communicated through writing and drawing. Unbenownst to her parents, she was writing notes and leaving them around the house tucking them in between books in the bookcase, the holiday ornament boxes and other places where they would later find them as they moved through their everyday lives.

While we often focus on the BIG moments in life --- holidays and milestones --- this book reminds us that it's important to remember that each day there is a reason to celebrate. Elena was wise beyond her years and left quite a legacy of love.

Today we talk with Keith Desserich about what Elena would think about Notes Left Behind and the outpouring of support the book is receiving, how book club members can take action and more. ---Carol Fitzgerald

ReadingGroupGuides.com: For readers who aren't familiar with Notes Left Behind, what would you like them to know about the book?

Keith Desserich: Notes Left Behind was never intended to be about cancer or the death of a six-year-old girl. Instead it is about grasping the minutes of life before they disappear through your fingertips. Too often people focus on the large moments of life like birthdays, anniversaries and weddings and in doing so skip or even forget about the smaller moments such as reading with your son or daughter before bed, walking hand-in-hand and even the small laughs you share together as a family. Originally intended as a letter to Gracie about her older sister, Elena, the book was intended to pass on the lessons of Elena in the final moments she enjoyed with her family. Today it has become a reminder to parents everywhere to cherish their children and to find time everyday to truly learn to love.

RGG: What do you think Elena would say about the book and the attention it's getting?

KD: Elena was a six-year-old girl who shied from attention, preferring to establish her legacy in the letters and artwork she created. Today with the success of the book and with the donation of all U.S. author proceeds to pediatric cancer research through The Cure Starts Now Foundation, I think Elena would be proud. Not only do her notes touch thousands of families worldwide, but in the end they are helping to find a cure for the very cancer that she fought.

RGG: When did you begin finding the notes Elena left behind? Were you surprised that she had done this?

KD: Initially we thought the notes were a coincidence. But after finding 20 or more we realized that it was something more. And as we discovered notes in briefcases, drawers and between books on the shelves we knew that Elena intended for us to find them one day. How much she actually knew about her condition we will never know, but with every note she send us a hug and a reassurance that everything will be all right. Still, there's a part of us that wishes we would have discovered the notes while she was alive so that we too could return the love and even the notes. Unfortunately, though, due to a reconstruction project started before her diagnosis and continuing until after her fight had ended, we never found her notes when we could have appreciated them most.

RGG: What are some of the topics book clubs could discuss about Notes Left Behind?

KD: I think that anyone can share in the meaning of the book and how it teaches us all to treasure our children. Elena's fight taught us how our children are our heroes and changed the way we even relate to Gracie still to this day. Hopefully this lesson is universal, but how we spend that time is individual.

RGG: On the ReadingGroupGuides.com blog we've had numerous discussions about activism, with booksellers, authors, and reading group members offering input. Proceeds from Notes Left Behind are going to The Cure Starts Now, a foundation to fun pediatric brain cancer research. For book club members inspired to do more, how might they take action?

KD: The Cure Starts Now is a foundation that started from a community and a foundation that to this day is fueled by the ideas of that community. Because of this, we offer many events such as our school-based "Caps for the Cure," the business based "Heart on My Sleeve" and the home based "Make a Stand" lemonade stands. Still, even beyond that, people nationwide create their own fundraisers for the cure that extend into their own neighborhoods and touch the hearts of hundreds more.

RGG: What would you like readers to take away from Notes Left Behind?

KD: I think Brooke and I would like nothing more than for readers of Notes Left Behind to appreciate the smaller moments in life --- to put down their phones, stash their computers and learn to be a family once again. And in doing so, the inspiration they will discover with be from within.

Oprah's Worldwide Web Event Tonight

2009-11-09T09:08:00.002-05:00

Oprah Winfrey is joining forces with CNN's Anderson Cooper, host of the television show AC 360, for what is being billed as "the biggest book club event ever." There will be an in-depth discussion with Uwem Akpan, author of the latest Oprah's Book Club selection, Say You're One of Them, tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST. The event will be simulcast live from Oprah.com and CNN.com. It's free to participate, but you do need to RSVP.

Say You're One of Them is a collection of short stories that came out in June 2008. It's the first time that Oprah has selected a short story collection for her Book Club.

Bookreporter.com reviewer Sarah Rachel Egelman wrote about Say You're One of Them: "In each story Akpan uses language, often a broken but lyrical English, to show the similarities and differences between the diverse peoples of Africa. Because of this, along with powerful plots and sympathetic narrators, Say You're One of Them is an unforgettable, beautiful, authentic and wise literary call to action. Akpan's book is highly recommended and will leave readers wanting more of his dark, carefully moralistic and quite extraordinary tales." You can read the rest of her review here and find a discussion guide here.

Best Discussion Books: The Great Apes' Picks

2009-11-06T11:36:00.000-05:00

Today Jeff Potter, a member of The Great Apes Reading Group of Fort Collins, Colorado, shares the three books that sparked their best discussions. The group's name comes from their 10th reading selection, Tarzan of the Apes. The main character in the book is "an avid reader, even teaching himself to read by reading Paradise Lost, if you can believe that," says Jeff. The Great Apes, an all-guy book club with members ranging in age from 37 to 64, has been going strong for 15 years.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West may be the best non-fiction book most of us have ever read; I personally would call it such. We still refer to parts of it even twelve years later, especially the sad ending after the trip to the Pacific was completed. Stephen Ambrose has the ability to put us right on the trail with Lewis and Clark and we see the country, or what became part of the country, unfold right before our eyes. We couldn't believe that only one Corps of Discovery soldier died over the course of the two year trip. Ambrose captures the personal and personality struggles of each soldier, too. Leadership is a big theme and I'm not sure anyone today could complete the task Jefferson charged Lewis and Clark with without lots of infighting and egos getting in the way. The psychology behind the choosing of the Corps is fascinating. If history was always taught in such a readable fashion, it would be much more popular!

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing is similar to Ambrose's book: adventure, leadership, personalities, psychology, devotion to a crew and a cause. The world was a different place when Shackleton ran his ad soliciting men for a mission to the South Pole that you "probably wouldn't return from," but the men that signed up were very recognizable to us all. We contrasted Shackleton's leadership style and motives with that of the Everest guides in Krakauer's Into Thin Air. Very well researched and readable about an expedition that many people have forgotten about or never even knew about. We can all learn something about committment to a cause and to a crew as Shackleton goes for help...and returns with help months and months later. It's an unforgettable expedition and an unforgettable read, simply an unbelievable story.

The Master and Margarita is an incredibly inventive novel that crosses all genre boundaries. It's historical, religious/spiritual, satiric, full of magic realism (see the "cat"!), political and more all at once. We talked about this over two meetings and on occasion still return to plumb its depths and keep trying to wrap our minds around what Bulgakov has created. A background in basic Russian political history and early Christianity is helpful, but probably not necesary as long as one reads with an open mind. It's also a psychological and philosophical study too, so there is no limit to the discussion subjects. I don't think any of us had ever read any Bulgakov before we happened on this novel, but we are all glad we read it even if we can't neatly tie it all together! This was one of our first foreign novels that offered a variety of translations, so we received an education of how the translation can influence the reading or the meaning. Fascinating and rewarding but definitely not for everyone.

Best Discussion Books: Oryx & Crake, On Her Own Ground and More

2009-11-05T09:47:00.000-05:00

Continuing with best discussion books, as submitted by readers of the ReadingGroupGuides.com newsletter (sign up here), below are some of the comments that were shared. And find out what book club members had to say about why My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult and Alan Brennert's Moloka'i make for great conversations.

"I laughed, cried, and was challenged by The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. I sometimes shy away from "translated" books; at times they do not capture the style of the author, but this book is wonderful. It's the story of a concierge at an upscale apartment building in Paris. Her relationship (and lack of) with the characters who live there is very telling." --Rosemary Hood

"One of the best discussions we have had was about the book The Invisible Wall: A Love Story that Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein. We also read the sequel, The Dream: A Memoir, shortly after that. The ladies in the group come from a wide variety of backgrounds but all have experienced prejudice in one form or another. Prejudice from socio-economic status, religion, or simply working and stay at home have given rise to damaged egos and hurt feelings. We all related to Harry's experience and admired the courage of both mother and son." --Susie Schachte, Greenwood Public Library

"Recently, my book group read two older books: The Far Family by Wilma Dykeman and Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. Book books stimulated two of the best discussions we have had. Everyone had something to say, and we all agreed we would like to read more older novels." --Anna Robinson

"I think the first pick would be One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus, as the members were still bringing it up a year after we read it. The next would be Jackdaws by Ken Follett. We hesitated about picking this book, but everyone ended up loving it. Also Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Each book picked generated not only a good book discussion but many referrals to the book months down the road." --Lana Mason

"Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood was our best discussion. Often during other book club meetings, the book would resurface in our discussion. The ending was never clear and brought many ideas and much philosophical discussion on the subject." --Micheline Heckler

"Choosing three favorites is quite a task, but if I must pick three that stand out, these would be: On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker. The author, A'Lelia Bundles, phone conferenced with us for our discussion. Our group was estatic that an author would take time to discuss her work with us. Ms. Bundles gave us special insights to her book; she is also the great-grandaughter of C.J. Walker, so this made the connection more special.

Our very first book and the namesake of our group is special to us. In March 1998, our first discussion was Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith, thus our group name is FTL Book Club. As women, we connected with the protagonist of Smith's novel and enjoyed reading about the changes this Applachian woman saw in herself and in her surroundings.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks was a good and enjoyable piece of fiction. Brooks cleverly entwined religion and mystery in the storyline to keep interest for a good book club discussion." --Pat Neidhard

Susan Meissner: Books that Speak Beyond Their Pages

2009-11-03T09:19:00.010-05:00

Susan Meissner, today's guest blogger, talks about being both a reading group member and a writer whose works are read by book clubs. She offers her thoughts on why books can make strangers the best of friends...and what she thinks readers deserve when they journey through one of her novels.

Susan is the author of White Picket Fences and The Shape of Mercy, named by Publishers Weekly as one of 2008's one hundred best novels. You can learn more about her at SusanMeissner.com.

I was sitting in a cozy fire-lit room a few weeks ago with a dozen other women. Chocolate, mugs of coffee and glasses of merlot were scattered about our copies of The Help, and the book's mellow, butterscotch cover blended in nicely with the room's fall colors. There was laughter, tender moments, tense moments, and more laughter. A casual observer might have thought, "Look at those women over there, talking and laughing and listening to each other. They're probably at this bed and breakfast for a reunion of some kind. Probably classmates who've known each other thirty years."

Truth is, my book club is comprised of women who collectively have known each other less than three years. Some of the women are so new to the group, we don't yet recognize their cars when they arrive for book club.

But when we gather to discuss, dissect, digest a book, we come across as old friends who seem to have known each other since kindergarten. A good book can do that --- bring together the people who've read it into an immediate fraternity of souls, like survivors of the same hostage situation. I would venture a good book, read by a dozen strangers, could have those strangers exchanging email addresses one hour after being placed in a room with Starbucks, comfy chairs and discussion questions.

Consider this. A book like The Help, which is a fabulous book club read, is not just a book about a twenty-something aspiring writer in the early '60s penning the stories of Mississippi maids. It's a story about servitude, prejudice, ambivalence, ingratitude, injustice, grace, resilience, choices, desperation and dignity. A book that rises above its own storyline and makes us itch to talk to someone about it is why book clubs have made best friends of ordinary booklovers.

I admit, when I write a novel, I think about the book club readers who will read it, internalize it and then relive it in someone's living room or patio. Will they want to talk about this book when they are done? Will I be able to put enough flesh on this imaginary person that she seems real? Will these readers laugh with her, cry for her, shake an angry fist at her? Will her journey --- and every protagonist is on one --- matter to these readers?

When I was piecing together The Shape of Mercy, and more recently White Picket Fences, these were the questions that haunted me as I wrote. I am highly aware of the promise I make when I begin on page 1. You, dear reader, deserve a story that will touch you at a level that the morning newspaper does not. You deserve a story that somehow leaves you different than before you read it. I write to entertain, of course. But that which is merely entertainment is often quickly forgotten. I don't want you to forget what I write. And that means I have to create a story peopled by unforgettable characters. It is a tall order. But I love every minute of the labor to give you what you deserve.

An author friend of mine recently finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which I loved, loved, loved. She posted how much she enjoyed the book on an online writers group, and I couldn't help but comment on her post. I told her those characters are so beautifully real to me, I want to get on a plane and go to Guernsey right now and meet them --- 70 years after the war --- as if they are still living there. As if they were living there. As if they were living.

This is what I want to do for you. I want to give you characters who seem real to you, characters whose choices you pick apart while you sip spiced cider in a room full of people you may have only just met. Characters who make you think about things that matter. That keep you thinking long after you've turned the last page...

---Susan Meissner

Kathryn Stockett's THE HELP

2009-11-03T08:48:00.015-05:00

Katherine Stockett's debut novel, The Help, has been generating interest since its publication earlier this year. Set in 1963, it's the story of three women --- two African American maids in Mississippi and a young white woman who sees a story in the world that they live in.

An article in today's New York Times, "A Southern Mirrored Window," takes an in-depth look at The Help --- how Stockett came up with the idea, her not-so-easy path to publication, the novel's extraordinary success (it has stayed in the top 5 on the NYT hardcover fiction bestseller list since August), and the praise as well as the controversy it has garnered.

More on The Help:
Discussion Guide
RGG.com Blog Post
Bookreporter.com Review
Bookreporter.com Author Profile
Kathryn Stockett's Website
Podcast of Stockett Talking about The Help

Good Book Club, Bad Book Club

2009-11-02T08:10:00.014-05:00

Sometimes it happens --- a book club meeting just doesn't go well. And sometimes they're among the most memorable discussions. RGG.com contributor Heather Johnson's group, Storie delle Sorelle, recently experienced this in back-to-back meetings, and today she talks about these two extremes.

Most months my book club meetings are fantastic --- great friends, great conversation, everything goes smoothly --- but from time to time we have duds. Our August and September meetings are perfect examples of those two extremes.

Near the end of August we met to discuss The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Most of our members attended this meeting so we had a great crowd. The weather was gorgeous and we all enjoyed sitting around the pool. We even had three guests attend, all of whom fit in quite well.

The discussion couldn't have been better. We talked about the epistolary form of the novel --- who liked it, who didn't, and why. We discussed the characters --- were they fully developed, and who were our favorites? We talked about the history of Guernsey, an island in the English Channel --- what we'd known before versus what we learned from the novel. Near the end of the meeting I was able to share insight from an interview I conducted with co-author Annie Barrows that shed some light on our discussions. All in all, an excellent day.

In September we met to discuss C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, the story of two princesses and the struggle between sacred and profane love. We were all looking forward to an outdoor Happy Hour complete with margaritas to help us celebrate the official end of summer. In reality, however, the weather was rather cool and so windy our napkins kept blowing away. Only five people made it to the meeting; of that number, one didn't finish reading and one didn't read at all. This has happened before, but it isn't common...and it is usually a sign that the book wasn't a hit.

Those of us who did read the book disliked it to varying degrees. We tried to discuss the plot, the characters and our reactions to it all, but every topic fell flat until we finally realized that we'd rather talk about anything else but this book. In part that was due to having too few fully engaged participants (more people who had read the book would definitely have led to a better discussion), but it was also due to the book itself; we were simply ready to be done with it.

So instead of book talk we sipped our drinks, chatted about our lives, got pulled into yet another conversation about whether Twilight is worth reading, and simply enjoying being together...until the black clouds rolled in about 15 minutes later. At that point we realized we hadn't gotten to the administrative issues were had planned to discuss at this meeting. It was too late to fix that, though; in the end we barely made it to our cars before the skies opened up on us.

I think every club has these kinds of meetings from time to time, meetings where all your careful preparation amounts to nothing in the end. Hopefully you also have great meetings where everything falls into place perfectly. My suggestion for the bad times is to make the best of the time you have together with your club and simply realize that your next meeting is bound to be better. Of course, if EVERY meeting is like this then you've got a real problem...

My club's next meeting is coming up soon and we'll be discussing Kevin Roose's The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University. Will this meeting be a success? We'll just have to wait and see...but I'm pretty confident it will be great.

---Heather Johnson

Best Discussion Books: MOLOKA'I

2009-10-30T13:54:00.001-04:00

Continuing with best discussion books, as submitted by readers of the ReadingGroupGuides.com newsletter, here is what Becky Haase of the LaSalle Book Group in Chicago had to say about Moloka'i by Alan Brennert.

Our best discussion was for Moloka'i by Alan Brennert, the story of a leper colony on one of Hawaii's islands. The main character, a young girl condemned to the colony from age six in the late 1800's to her old age when the colony was disbanded after World War II, is a fascinating tale of the island and many of the "real" people who lived and worked there, including Father Damian. It was obvious by the loving and accurate detail that a great deal of research had gone into the writing of the book.

Our discussion ranged from removing children from their homes to the impact of disease on the ill and their families to love and marriage to the internment of the Japanese during WWII to reuniting birth and adoptive families --- just to mention a few of the topics we covered. We usually meet for one hour, but this discussion lasted for two full hours. It is often referred to as "the best book we've read" by members when choosing our next book.

When, soon after our meeting, the book became a bestseller, we joked that our discussion must have led to its popularity. Now we are looking forward to reading Alan Brennert's new novel, Honolulu.

---Becky Haase
The LaSalle Book Group

Best Discussion Books: MY SISTER'S KEEPER

2009-10-29T10:06:00.002-04:00

Recently we asked book club members to share the book that resulted in their group's best discussion. The nearly 40 titles we received run the gamut from biographies to thrillers. Surprisingly, only one was mentioned more than once: Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper. Today Denise Neary offers her thoughts on the novel and why it sparked a great discussion among the mother-daughter members of her book club. Has your group read My Sister's Keeper? Tell us about your discussion in the Comments section.

We'll be sharing more "Best Discussion Books" in future posts.

Click here to read Denise's RGG.com guest blog post about The Red Balloons, the book club she founded with her daughter, and here for her recollections of the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

My Sister's Keeper provided a great discussion for our daughter/mother book club. That is, if you count talking all over one another, laughing, arguing, never letting the discussion leader get a word in (much less getting her questions out) as a great discussion, as our group does.

Picoult is such a master at presenting complicated questions in concrete yet head-spinning packages --- so here is the situation, and your response is.... What? Given the choices these characters had to confront, what would you do?

For some inexplicable reason, the strong-willed daugher and the strong-willed mother in the book both resonated with our group of teens and moms. It was interesting to hear the teens' take on Sara, and the moms' take on her daughters, Anna and Kate. The book made us think hard, both daughers and mothers, about what it is to be an individual in a family, not just in extraordinary circumstances but day to day. That is a complicated issue at any time in life, and especially tricky for a teen coming to terms with a sense of who they are in the world. Several of them have probably considered legal emancipation since reading the book.

The ending (the book's ending, not the movie version) provided such perfect discussion bedlam, especially when one of the moms pointed out that Sara was right (bad words to be uttered in front of a group of teens) --- if Anna had done this one last thing for her sister, she would have saved Kate and no more would have been asked of her.

A rare and telling silence in the discussion --- everyone, daughters and moms, strongly believed that Anna had been asked too much in her young life. But when the discussion leader asked the moms in the group what we would do if our own child were in that situation, none of us could answer. What did that silence mean, and what did it say to our daughters?

We all make plans, and then fate steps in --- in real life, and in books. My Sister's Keeper gives a beautiful and anguished portrait of the choices we sometimes have to make...and endless opportunity for discussion.

---Denise Neary
The Red Balloons

Emilie Richards: A Writers' Book Club

2009-10-28T07:16:00.000-04:00

Emilie Richards, today's guest blogger, talks about her love of reading and why her discussions with her online book club have been the most important educational experiences she has had as a writer.

Emilie's most recent novel is Happiness Key, the story of four women who have nothing in common...or so it seems. She is also the author of the Ministry is Murder series and the Shenandoah Album series.

Who are the most prolific readers you've encountered? Would authors qualify? Guess what? Not so much.

In conversations with my author friends, I'm always surprised at how rarely many of them read. One friend has a paralyzing sense of doom when she reads work she perceives to be better than her own. Another is fulfilled at day's end by her own stories, and feels little need for more. Most of us are somewhere in the middle. We're not tired of sentences and paragraphs. If asked, we blame a lack of free time, often coupled with a fear we might subconsciously borrow from another writer's work.

Because I once read voraciously, I understand the problem too well. By the time I was in kindergarten, I began reading my way around the children's room in our small local library. I survived adolescence and family crises by escaping into somebody else's world. Later, as a young mother, I nursed my sons with a book nearby so that when they finally drifted off to sleep, I could rock them and read, both of us supremely contented.

Then I began to write. Worse yet, I began to write for a living. Suddenly I had to fight insurmountable obstacles to open a novel. There had never been enough hours in the day, and suddenly there weren't any. At night if I made it through three paragraphs before falling asleep, I was lucky.

More than ten years ago, a group of mystified writer friends tried to come up with a way we could change this. We decided to discuss books together. Since we rarely had time to meet in person, we quickly took those discussions online. Other writers joined us. Members dropped in and out, and now, although we're larger than ever, I'm the only original member. But what a group we are.

In many ways we're a typical book club. With a few guidelines we take turns choosing books. Since we write fiction, we read fiction. We agree to participate as often as we can. Having an assignment and others counting on us makes a difference. Used to fulfilling commitments, we step on board and do just that.

In other ways, we're not typical at all. We're never face to face, no shared meals or book swaps. Because all of us have many writer friends, we make certain that nobody in the group has a personal problem critiquing a particular author's work. Our discussions are confidential and often intimate. We're interested in the reasons authors do what they do, and just as interested in the reasons their editors bought the manuscripts and readers put them on bestseller lists --- or didn't.

Not only do I now make certain I have time to read each month, our discussions have been the single most important educational experience I've had as a writer. They've also been the most freeing. I've learned a hundred important things, but one stands out. Ten years later, I have finally internalized the primary message I've heard book after book, discussion after discussion. It's this simple. The best books have their detractors. The worst books have their fans. Nothing we write will please everybody.

In the immortal words of Ricky Nelson: "If you can't please everyone, then you have to please yourself."

These days I do please myself, both as a writer and a reader. When I fell in love with cozy mysteries, I began the Ministry is Murder cozy mystery series about a free-spirited minister's wife in a small Ohio town. When I realized I missed having more time to quilt, I wrote the Shenandoah Album series about quilters in the Shenandoah Valley. When I wanted to write about women's friendships, Happiness Key, my latest novel, was the result, to be followed by two more.

Hearing so many different opinions from writers I deeply respect has freed me to stop worrying about the way my books will be received. Now I know I write for readers like me. I please myself and hopefully them.

Just as important, ten years later, because of the book club, I've read more than a hundred novels I might never have picked up. I've been introduced to new authors who are now among my favorites. I've made good friends with women I can count on to tell me the truth as they see it.

If you're reading this blog because you're in a book club, I bet you have, too. Aren't we lucky?

---Emilie Richards

Celebrating National Reading Group Month

2009-10-26T09:56:00.000-04:00

Five authors were in the spotlight last Wednesday evening at the Mint Theater in New York City, where book club members and other bibliophiles gathered to celebrate National Reading Group Month. Sponsored by the local chapter of the Women's National Book Association, the lively panel discussion was moderated by Rosalind Reisner, the author of Read On...Life Stories: Reading Lists for Every Taste and Jewish American Literature: A Guide to Reading Interests, and Miriam Tuliao of the New York Public Library.

The authors and their books:

Eva Hoffman, Appassionata
Eva Hoffman studied music while growing up in Poland and was groomed to be a pianist, the profession of the main character in Appassionata. "My first impetus was to write about music," Hoffman said of her motivation for crafting the novel, which takes its name from a Beethoven sonata. A renowned American concert pianist, Isabel Merton is torn between a love for what she does and the lonely, nomadic lifestyle it requires. When she meets a Chechen political exile while on tour in Europe, their relationship leads to a frightening incident that leads her to question her motives...and tests her faith in the power of music.

Christina Baker Kline, Bird in Hand
The idea for Bird in Hand first came to Christina Baker Kline a decade ago as she, like one of the novel's characters, was moving from New York City to the suburbs. But the story took a back seat as she wrote and published her third novel, The Way Life Should Be. "I didn't know how to tell it for a while," she said of Bird in Hand, the story of two couples --- their long friendship, divergent lifestyles, secrets and crumbling marriages. Kline eventually decided to structure the narrative in a reverse timeline and with shifting points of view. She said, "It was like a puzzle that fell into place."

C.M. Mayo, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire
C.M. Mayo's novel The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is based on a true, little-known story about the short, turbulent reign of the archduke of Austria, Maximilian von Hapsburg, who was made emperor of Mexico in 1864. "It was a glamorous period we know very little about in the U.S.," commented Mayo. The childless emperor adopted a half-Mexican child, Augustin, whose American socialite mother later changed her mind about giving up her son and sparked an international incident. Said Mayo, "Therein lies the story and the scandal." Click here to read her RGG.com guest blog post.

Julie Metz, Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal
"I felt like I was in a bad novel I wanted to get out of," Julie Metz told the audience about the period following the sudden death of her husband six years ago and her discovery that he had been unfaithful throughout much of their marriage. In her memoir, Perfection, "I wanted to take readers on the same journey I went through," she said. She wanted the narrative "to read like a novel," and she had in mind a classic tale --- Jane Eyre, which, she noted, "became the inspiration for the structure of my book." Click here to read the RGG.com Q&A with Julie.

Roxana Robinson, Cost
Roxana Robinson began writing Cost because she wanted to explore the issue of "how difficult it is to be a good adult child." In the novel, artist Julia Lambert is anticipating a low-key summer in Maine with her elderly parents: her father, a domineering, retired neurosurgeon, and her mother, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's. "I thought it was going to be a quiet, domestic story," said Robinson --- until Julia's son Jack, a heroine addict, emerged on the scene and "blew quiet, domestic out of the water."

---Shannon McKenna Schmidt

Talking with Matthew Pearl

2009-10-23T08:50:00.003-04:00

Earlier this month Matthew Pearl offered insight on a fascinating aspect of his latest historical novel, The Last Dickens --- the sometimes dangerous world of 19th-century book publishing. Today we talk with him about why classic literary figures are so intriguing to modern readers, why he enjoys meeting with book clubs and more.

Click here to read Matthew's guest post, The Last Dickens and the Exciting History (Really!) of the Publishing Industry.

ReadingGroupGuides.com: You've met with many reading groups to talk about your three novels --- The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow and The Last Dickens. What do you enjoy most about interacting with book clubs?

Matthew Pearl: Book club conversations are such treats. I've always believed in books as means to a community, as played out in the stories of my novels, too. The Dante Club, my first novel, was in a way actually about a nineteenth century book club. The Last Dickens, too, is about the passion that books inspire and the way books can empower or endanger readers.

RGG: Why do you think classic literary figures have such continuing appeal for modern readers? What about Charles Dickens in particular?

MP: So many of us grew up reading about classic literary figures without knowing much about them. Historical fiction allows us to explore classic authors beyond their famous names. Dickens is a great example of this. His identity as a writer is very different from his personal identity, and this is something I have the chance to explore in The Last Dickens.

RGG: What research did you do for The Last Dickens?

MP: There were many different areas of research, from the very large --- Charles Dickens as a person --- to the very small --- what clothing the character of Rebecca would wear. I actually love the research, which is important, because it can get very tedious. This was the first novel where I hired a research assistant, who was a wonderful help.

RGG: You've taken on two of literary history’s most tantalizing mysteries --- whether or not Dickens completed his final novel and, in The Poe Shadow, what led to Edgar Allan Poe's unexplained death. How much of your talks with reading groups center on the mystery aspect of the plots? What other themes and topics do they particularly like to discuss from your novels?

MP: Reading groups often enjoy speaking about what parts of the novels are fact and what are fiction. That's especially the case with Poe's death and Dickens' final plot. With The Last Dickens, some reading groups also read The Mystery of Edwin Drood in conjunction with the novel. The character of Rebecca and the particular challenges for a young woman working in an office in the 19th century also seems to be an interesting topic.

RGG: What one or two memorable book club moments can you share with us?

MP: Well, I've had some questions about setting me up with some book club members' daughters or grandaughters, which I appreciate, though probably my wife doesn't! The book club meetings I've attended in person instead of on the phone clue me in to the real secret of the book club: great food. For my book party for The Last Dickens, the restaurant recreated a dish called Timbales a la Dickens and a drink called Dickens punch. I'm happy to share the recipes if any book clubs want to combine that with discussing the novel.

Book Clubs in the News

2009-10-21T08:18:00.011-04:00

Today's round-up of book club news spans the country from California to New Jersey --- thoughts on Olive Kitteridge and The Help, why a thriller by Daniel Silva was selected by members of the intelligence community for a university book club, suggestions for uplifting reads, and more.

The Book Bench: Literate Lads of La-La Land
The New Yorker's blog introduces an L.A. men's reading group, started by a member who "was jealous of his wife's book club and was determined to start his own." It was "an excuse for a guys' night out," but there is serious reading going on. Selections have included Bel Canto by Ann Patchet and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, paired with food fitting each book's theme (Peruvian for the former and Latin American for the latter).

CentralJersey.com: This Club's Members are Hungry for More
Members of the Hungry Readers, who meet at the Manville Public Library in New Jersey, offer some food for thought about book clubs. We were pleased to note one of the resources they use: ReadingGroupGuides.com.

ChicagoNow.com: Book Club
Janet Dahl shares what she and the members of her reading group, the Bookbags, thought of Katherine Stockett's novel The Help, which "gives a voice to a group of Mississippi maids, laboring for Junior League-ish women of the early '60s."

The Daily Aztec: Book Club Promotes Conversation
San Diego State University has started an intriguing reading group, using a federal government book list from the intelligence community for their selections. The goal is to "inform the SDSU community about various global matters." One of the books on the list is Daniel Silva's Moscow Rules for its portrayal of Russian arms deals.

The Kansas City Star: Heroine in Olive Kitteridge Leaves Lasting Impression on FYI Book Club
Find out what the FYI Book Club had to say about Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge. Katie Mediatore Stover, head of reader services at the Kansas City Public Library and RGG.com guest blogger, moderated the discussion.

Sioux City Journal: Long Before Oprah, There was the Bard of Avon Club
The Bard of Avon Club in Sioux City, Iowa, recently celebrated 100 years of reading. The group reads a wide array of books, but once a year they devote a meeting to its namesake: William Shakespeare.

The Wall Street Journal: Uplifting Reading
In her "Book Lover" column, Cynthia Crossen answers a reader's request for some book club suggestions "that are uplifting and joyful to read, yet also stimulating --- something that would satisfy our intellectual needs but also make us feel good about the world."

Penguin Classics: A Literary Makeover

2009-10-20T08:40:00.001-04:00

Employees at the Penguin Group USA made it their 2008 New Year's resolution to each read one Penguin Classics title. Alan Walker, the company's Senior Director of Academic Marketing & Sales, took it further...much further. He began an ambitious "literary makeover," reading a Penguin Classics title for each letter of the alphabet.

Today we talk with Alan about why he decided to read the classics A-Z (not once, but twice) and what tips he has for book clubs who might like to embark on their own literary marathon.

Click here for a re-cap of Alan's first foray into the Classics and here to follow along on his latest reading adventure.

ReadingGroupGuides.com: What inspired you to undertake the reading marathon? And then to embark on a second one?

Alan Walker: We have a bookroom at the Penguin offices filled with Penguin Classics, and just being in a room with that many great books is at once frustrating and inspiring. Where to start? How will I ever read them all? I figured I'd attach some semblance of order to that all-important question of what to read next just to make that decision a simpler one, and I selected an author for each letter of the alphabet. Having made it through one round of authors alphabetically, I was motivated to start again mainly by all the books I had to leave behind the first time around. What can I say? I'm an addict!

RGG: What advice do you have for book clubs that would like to do something similar?

AW: I guess my best advice would be not to be intimidated by the Classics. Even if you just throw in a Classic into your regular book club choices, I think you'll find that reading classic literature will add new light onto contemporary works, and you'll just want to read more of them.

RGG: One book in particular piqued our interest while looking over the list of titles you read the first time around --- My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin (born Stella Maria Miles Franklin), a semi-autobiographical novel about her life in the Australian outback. "Jane Eyre and Lucy Honeychurch have nothing on this feminist heroine," you remarked about the book. What makes Franklin's novel so compelling?

AW: I'm glad you mentioned this one; this book was a real find and definitely hard to put down. Just a great read; a great story and I'd say one of the best heroines I've ever come across ! I think this was the best part of doing this reading marathon, discovering must-read books like this. I've recommended My Brilliant Career to many friends and all have been as satisfied as I was.

RGG: What are some of the other classics you read during the marathon that would make particularly good selections for reading groups?

AW: Some of my favorite finds were Nella Larsen's Passing, Barbara Pym's Excellent Women, Turgenev's First Love, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, and The American by Henry James. All of these stories were extremely compelling. Reading groups will find lots to talk about with these books: issues of race, class, a variety of historical background, writing styles. Mostly, though, I am a glutton for plot and character and you'll find that and much more. I can't help but want to read more of these authors' works.

RGG: The company has launched the online radio show Penguin Classics On Air. Why might book clubs want to tune in?

AW: These shows provide book clubs with ideas on Penguin Classics to choose, as well as starting points for discussions from academics, editors and other writers. Right now, there is a show about a new Classic by Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton called Who Would Have Thought It? Ruiz de Burton was the first Mexican American novelist, and apparently this book reads like Henry James meets Uncle Tom's Cabin. I'm already looking forward to my next "R."

Book Clubs: Making a Difference

2009-10-19T09:26:00.010-04:00

Book club members are a generous group and are often inspired to take action to help others in various ways, as we've noted in previous posts. Bookseller Debra Linn's group made a donation to the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center after reading Edwidge Danticat's memoir Brother, I'm Dying, and author Ann Hood talked about how even hobbies like knitting can be used to make a difference. In last year's round-up of holiday activities and traditions submitted by ReadingGroupGuides.com readers, many noted that they seek out ways to help in their communities and beyond.

In a piece on the HuffingtonPost.com, Linda Mason, Chair of the Board for the aid organization Mercy Corps, highlights businesswoman Rufi Natarajan and her Houston reading group, who selected and discussed Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Pulitzer Prize-winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. "This book club was incensed and compelled to action," writes Mason. They have raised $700 so far for Mercy Corps, which works on behalf of women in developing countries, and Rufi is speaking out to alert more American women about the cause.

Rufi's book club, notes Mason, is one of more than 400 around the world participating in an initiative to have groups read Half the Sky and spread the word about Mercy Corps' cause. Authors Kristof and WuDunn plan to visit the book club that compiles the most impressive record of activism by June 15, 2010. Click here for information and to sign up your group for the contest.

Meet Betsy, Tacy and Tib

2009-10-15T09:01:00.001-04:00

Are there books that captured your imagination when you were a child and that you still re-read from time to time? For RGG.com contributor Jennifer Hart it's the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. Today she shares what drew her to the books, why she still has such an affinity for them --- and the part she played in giving some of the stories a second life.

Click here for a discussion guide to the Betsy-Tacy series.

If you're at all familiar with my blog, twitter or Facebook life as Book Club Girl, or if you've ever met me, you know that there is a series of books about which I am beyond passionate. Some people (my family among them) might even call me obsessed. But if you're in publishing and there isn't a series of books or an author that you don't lovingly follow, read and reread, then perhaps you are in the wrong industry.

The literary object of my affection is the Betsy-Tacy series of children's books by Maud Hart Lovelace. Now probably 90% of you reading this are thinking, "Hmm, well ok Jennifer, but I've never heard of this Betsy-Tacy. I was a well-read child, how could I have missed these? Surely, they can't be that good, or I'd know about them already." In the words of another fan, all I can say is: "I pity you, but envy you that the pleasure of reading these books still lies ahead." And you are not alone --- many people haven't heard of Betsy-Tacy. In fact, among those of us who love these books, the running mantra when we meet another one of us is "I thought I was the only one!" Because my sister was as equally obsessed as me, I never thought I was the only one, but we definitely thought we were the only two keeping the copies in the Nashua, NH Public Library in circulation.

But fans there are, not only on a vibrant list serv dedicated to Maud Hart Lovelace called Maud L, in four Facebook groups and in the national Maud Hart Lovelace and Betsy-Tacy Societies (not to mention many regional chapters), but also among acclaimed and bestselling writers including Meg Cabot (see her wonderful essay on the series in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal) Anna Quindlen, Laura Lippman, Nora Ephron, Mary Kay Andrews, Judy Blume, Joyce Maynard and Nancy Pearl.

The Betsy-Tacy books were written in the 1940s and '50s and chronicle the life of one Betsy Warrington Ray, from the age of five, when she meets the girl across the street who will become her lifelong best friend, Tacy, all the way through her growing up, through four years of high school, on to a solo year of travel in Europe just prior to the outbreak of World War I and back home to Minnesota where she marries her high school sweetheart and embarks upon her career as a writer. The books are highly autobiographical and were based very much on Lovelace's growing up in Mankato, MN, the model for the town of Deep Valley in the books.

The first four books: Betsy-Tacy, Betsy, Tacy and Tib, Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill and Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown are illustrated by the wonderful children's illustrator (and author) Lois Lenski and are very much written for younger readers (I recommend starting with Betsy-Tacy when your daughter is five and you can read it aloud, or listen to the audio read by Sutton Foster), but the books progress in complexity and themes as the series goes on. Indeed, in the first four books, the subjects range from illness, death of a sibling, racism and family alienation and strife. They are lighthearted in tone and in the adventures that Betsy and Tacy embark on, but they also address more serious issues in a way that children can understand. In each book Betsy's world gets larger as she ventures further out into her neighborhood and town.

I read and reread those first four books over and over again when I was young. And I didn't know, at the time, that the series continued. I remember so distinctly the day that I opened up Heaven to Betsy, the first of the "high school books" and the one that chronicles Betsy's freshman year. As an awkward 12-year-old sitting with my legs flung over the living room chair, I was delighted to see that Betsy had suddenly blossomed from the cute but stocky Lenksi illustration and was now romantically drawn by the inimitable illustrator Vera Neville. Betsy's transformation mirrored the one I was longing for at that age. Betsy was setting off for high school --- there were boys, dances, drives in autos and high school hijinx, and I devoured every single high school book (Heaven to Betsy, Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe) and the two that followed (Betsy and the Great World and Betsy's Wedding) and reread them to this day.

As a young girl I had always loved reading about "olden times," but I think what drew me most to the books was that, while they are definitely set in the past, so much about Betsy's life seems modern --- she has friends who are boys (as opposed to other books set in the past where boys and girls never mix and mingle); she longs ---not to be married (at least not immediately) - --but to become a famous writer and travel the world; she gets into trouble (nothing too extreme, but still, trouble) at school; and she is constantly struggling to figure out who she wants to be and what she wants people to think of her. All of this spoke to me as a young girl growing up. As I got older, rereading a Betsy book was the literary equivalent of comfort food. I turn to them when life is difficult, and they soothe my soul.

When I realized that the older books in the series were in need of reissue, we thought immediately of publishing them as Harper Perennial Modern Classics --- a line that includes classics such as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, two books that are also loved by readers young and old.

Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy Was a Junior and Betsy and Joe and Betsy and the Great World and Betsy's Wedding are now available in three 2-book volumes with Forewords by Laura Lippman, Meg Cabot and Anna Quindlen, respectively, and cover illustrations from the books' original publications by Vera Neville.

Working on these reissues has been one of the highlights of my career. I traveled this summer to the Betsy-Tacy Convention in Mankato, MN , met descendants of various characters in the books and toured Betsy's and Tacy's childhood homes and the town of Deep Valley. I spent a delightful afternoon poring through Maud's photo albums for photographs for the back matter in the reissues. Betsy-Tacy Convert Week is in full swing at Book Club Girl, in which hundreds of fans who were sent a Betsy book are giving them away to new fans of the series and reporting in on their results. Best of all, I have met smart, funny and interesting women from around the country who also count Betsy as one of their best friends, and I have, I hope, introduced Betsy to countless more.

---Jennifer Hart

Shelley Frisch: A Story Stranger than Fiction

2009-10-14T08:41:00.000-04:00

Shelley Frisch has translated books on a wide array of topics into English. But one in particular, she reveals in today's post, is a true-life tale stranger than fiction. Fromms: How Julius Fromm's Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis, written by Gotz Aly and Michael Sontheimer, unfolds the story of a Jewish entrepreneur who made a fortune manufacturing condoms for nearly two decades --- until, during World War II, he was forced to sell the business for a fraction of its worth and flee Germany.

"Waaait a minute.... Are you saying this book isn't fiction?"

The question came from a novelist at a recent writers' reception in Manhattan, as I recounted the story of Julius Fromm, the subject of my latest translation project from the German. And could I really blame him? Here I was discussing a non-fiction book titled Fromms: How Julius Fromm's Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis, the strange-but-true story of Germany's most prominent manufacturer of condoms and the state-fueled greed and pernicious ideology that unraveled his life's work and the moral fiber of an entire society.

Right from my first published translation --- a piece in Simon Wiesenthal's now-classic volume The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness --- I have, for some reason, gravitated to subjects whose societies push them to the margins. The themes in these books span history to histrionics, psychology to physics, pre-Socratic philosophy to pilgrimages, marooned refugees from Hitler's Germany to Maroon colonies in Jamaica, castrati to concentration camps to Communism and now --- to round out an alliterative set, I suppose --- condoms. I've "worked on" atomic clocks and atomic bombs, and when I translated a biography of Einstein in 2007, I learned that after Einstein's brain had been stolen from his corpse during his autopsy at our local hospital --- two blocks from my house, as eerie luck would have it --- it was stored on the street where I live, then zigzagged across the country in a beer cooler by its abductor. His eyes, similarly plucked from his head, wound up in a safe deposit box.

A translator becomes a quasi-expert, however superficially and temporarily, on the subject of the translation-in-progress. From the Fromms manuscript --- now relegated by several more recent projects to the deep crevices of my memory, even though it is appearing just this month in print --- I recall especially the intriguing information about the emerging field of "sexology" in Weimar Germany, the global history of condoms (I now know that Casanova's were made of sheep intestine and fish bladder, and that he referred to them as "English riding coats"), the condom manufacturing process, brothel etiquette and aesthetics and, so poignantly, the agony of expropriation and exile from Hitler's Germany.

There are moments of levity, such as Peter Lorre's first encounter with Alfred Hitchcock (Peter Lorre was a friend of Julius Fromm's son Max), interspersed with harrowing stories, notably the scandalous journey of the Dunera, a British ship that imprisoned Jewish and other refugees as "enemy aliens" --- among them Julius Fromm's son Edgar --- and brought them to Australia under concentration camp-like conditions. Most memorable of all to me was Hermann Goering's seizure of Fromm's condom factory so he could swap it for two castles his godmother owned, while the Fromms fled to England, stripped of their possessions, their company, their adopted homeland, and even the right to continue using the family name when they rebuilt the business in London.

In the early days, though, when business boomed and a future under Hitler was still unthinkable, Fromms Act took the country by storm, and entered the popular imagination well beyond the bedroom or bordello. Here's a peek into the text:

By the end of the 1920s, Fromm's products were so popular that beer hall cabarettists and piano-bar comedians in Berlin were incorporating Fromms Act condoms into their routines, singing lines like "Fromms with your girl --- give it a whirl," "When the urge grabs you, grab Fromms Act," and "Just like a Fromm --- I'm ready to come." Fromm had made it. He did not have to pitch his condoms. Customers read the name and got the picture.

---Shelley Frisch

Miklos Vamos: Kisses to the American Readers

2009-10-13T09:07:00.001-04:00

Today's guest blogger, Miklós Vámos, talks about his winding road to publication in the United States --- and how some cultural differences between the U.S. and his native Hungary might not be as disparate as they seem. His novel The Book of Fathers is both a family saga, chronicling twelve generations, and a 400-year history of Hungary. Kirkus Reviews declared it a "beautifully crafted novel of connection and continuity," while Publishers Weekly wrote, "The book has many sublime moments, from meditations on the nature of time to a sly investigation of how words accumulate to form books."

In a happy period of my mid-life I happened to live more than two years in the USA, to be precise, in Connecticut. That was in the late '80s. I was a Fulbright fellow, but actually, I was a prince in the clothes of a beggar. At the time I was thirty-nine, the author of three novels and twelve other books. All of them written and published in Hungarian. I tried everything to make my name well-known in the USA. I published a story in The New York Times. They misspelled my name (Milos Vamos). I fought even harder. I wanted to find a big publisher for my novels. I had three agents, one after the other, including one of the nicest men in New York City, Robert Lantz. Unfortunately, he was also one of the busiest men in the City, and he devoted most of his time to his more famous clients like Peter Shaffer and Miloš Forman. I happened to be one of the most impatient men --- and I dumped all my U.S. agents by and by.

One of my novels was almost accepted by Scribner. Then, they dumped me. I had to realize that the U.S. world of publishing would not wait for me, and my works. I came home to my native Hungary. Wrote some more novels and other books, including The Book of Fathers, which is probably the best I have ever done. It came out in Hungary in 2000, and I considered it as my farewell to the twentieth century.

And what happened? A German publisher (Random House btb) brought it out. It became a bestseller. Afterward, Susanna Lea, one of the nicest women in Paris and New York City, decided to represent me throughout the world. Ever since then, every year I receive three to four contacts from different publishers of different countries. Now the time has come, and one of my books appears in the USA from Other Press. Every novel has its fate, and in each story of publishing there are also happy endings. Now all I need is some good luck from the readers. Do I deserve it? That has no importance in matters of luck.

I need some love from those readers for whom "Europe" sounds like the name of the weird banknotes used on the other side of the ocean, and who cannot tell the name of the Hungarian capital (Bucharest? Budapest? Budabest?).

When Europeans --- especially East Europeans, more especially Hungarians --- give each other a friendly kiss, they always kiss both cheeks. Americans only one. When a Hungarian (let's say, a male) comes to the United States, he kisses somebody's, anybody's, left cheek, then he moves to the right cheek. The American woman doesn't know what the hell is going on. She draws back. Then she understands that this was a second kiss, and she wants to return it. But it's already too late. Sometimes the heads bump against each other, and the whole scene becomes somewhat embarrassing. Americans tend to misunderstand this second kiss, believing it is something more than just a friendly gesture. They are surprised or puzzled.

Hungarians are willing to adopt the American traditions. When in Philadelphia, do as the Phillies do. Sooner or later they adjust to the single kiss. But, again, it's too late. Almost every American friend has already accepted the habit of the double kiss. He or she waits patiently for the second kiss, but it isn't offered. Sometimes the American moves toward the Hungarian's other cheek, but now it's the Hungarian's turn to be late. By the time he goes for the second kiss, the American has already retreated. More accidents are possible --- bumped noses, tangled hair, etc. The embarrassment is still there.

Everyone knows that in any exchange of kisses there is always the potential for misunderstanding. So when Hungarians and Americans kiss --- a greeting that stretches across oceans and cultures and language and time --- it comes as no surprise that such kisses can be an awkward reach across a junk pile of differences.

I would be so satisfied if my book could give an occasion to celebrate those clumsy yet warm meetings between Americans and Hungarians. The history of these two nations and its peoples is totally different. Still, both are crammed with the vagaries of political leadership, the irreversible pomposities of awful translations and, of course, the usual absurdities of life itself. But, there are also the common experiences of literature, of everyday laughter and tears made real by language and story and the fire of imagination. If occasionally we bump noses in the exchange of greetings and understanding, let us still enjoy our closeness and let us blame any embarrassment on history. Language, after all, has its limitations. Kisses, on the other hand, well ... kisses are kisses, they need no translation.

---Miklós Vámos