I’m dipping into my handy bag of book tricks again as I prepare for another workshop on book groups: facilitating, feeding, and tattooing. 

One of the gems I like to draw attention to is A Year of Reading by Elisabeth Ellington and Jane Freimiller.

Published in 2002, this trade paperback-sized treasure is great for folks who are just starting a book group and need help with basic preparations. It’s also suitable for the facilitator on the fly who needs to cobble together a reading plan tout de suite.

Using “classics and crowd pleasers,” Ellington and Freimiller take each month of the year and offer five titles for possible discussion, a good synopsis of each title with topics for reflection/discussion, multi-media and internet resources, and readalike suggestions.

I like to use this books an inexpensive source for library staff to delve into when time and money are at stake. These reading suggestions are tested successes for most book groups and all the prep work is present.

And I’ll admit it here and now. I also use this book when I’m lazy and need to be rescued from title selection and idea generation. Hey, it happens to everyone.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Book Club Tips, Adult Books, Reading Guides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.