Booklist Online: More than 130,000 book reviews for librarians, book groups, and book lovers - from the trusted experts at the American Library Association

Just what exactly should a study guide be? For decades of my life, study guides meant only one thing: a zebra-striped, yellow-and-black series of pamphlets called Cliffs Notes that were generally used for cheating. The Cliffs Notes version became a way of disparaging any condensation or expurgated version of a story, a kind of cheapening [...]

As book discussion leaders, have you found that sometimes what you planned to focus on in the discussion isn’t always what your group members want to talk about?  During the past two weeks, I’ve led two discussions — one at the library, with my regular group, and the other at Dominican University, with a class [...]

I am curious about what other book group leaders do to prepare themselves and their groups for discussions.  There are so many aspects to “preparation,” so I am just going to share one. Every month, one week prior to our meeting, I send out an e-mail reminder.  Because it is a Library book group, I [...]

I’m about to re-read my favorite new book of the year, Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger. Our book club discusses it one week from today, and a couple months have passed since I first made the acquaintance of Balram Halwai, entrepreneur. What a guy. I’m looking forward to having him try to hustle me again. [...]

When vacations, families, and the great outdoors call, book groups can quickly take a back seat. Here are ten ideas to help your group avoid doldrums and dog days: 1) OPEN UP THE POSSIBILITIES Instead of assigning a particular book, select a broad topic like mysteries, romances, or thrillers. When they have choices, your members [...]

  I really need a committee. Sure, I can choose and assemble the titles on the reading list, and I can put together a few sample study guides, and facilitating the discussions is no problem. I can figure out how to write grants, I suppose, but it’s going to take time to learn how to [...]

If you’re going to ALA you don’t want to miss Book Group Therapy: How to Repair, Revamp and Revitalize Your Book Group on Sunday, June 29, 10:30am-12,  in the Disneyland Hotel, the Disneyland North BR. Which do you want first? The good news or the bad news? Bad news? Okay, the guest speaker is unable [...]

Neil’s post about ODD books got me thinking.  How often have you gone into a book group meeting fearing the worst, that everyone will just hate the book?  I never expect the entire group to love a book.  In fact, better discussions arise when there are real differences of opinion.  It can be quite boring [...]

“I hated, hated, hated this book!” Those words are probably not what most book discussion leaders are hoping to hear when they convene their group — and yet, that response comes up often enough, so that leaders have to be ready to deal with it.  But what happens when everybody in the group (or almost [...]

  I am an obsessive bibliotaph.  My secret vice is that over the years I have accumulated six thousand private eye novels which I store in a damp basement on the south side of Milwaukee.  Temperature controls, humidity sensors, pffit!  Over the years, I have been asked to share (or sell) a volume in my [...]

If you’ve been in a book group for long, you’ve been there: the choice for next month’s meeting is announced and it’s a book you would never choose to read on your own. A book that you don’t expect to enjoy. A book that is ODD. A thought will pop into your head at this [...]

An international author arriving for the first time in his life on the West Coast isn’t likely to find his internationally bestselling novel for sale at the airport bookstore. Sure, everyone in Germany may be reading the novel, and sure, it may be a phenomenal, prize-winning success throughout Europe, but that doesn’t mean squat when [...]

Teen book group leaders looking for an adult book should take a look at Three Girls and Their Brother by Theresa Rebeck. This compulsively readable novel told in four voices will particularly appeal for its subject matter. Three sisters with wildly unusual red hair are tapped for a photo spread in the New Yorker with [...]

I am writing to convince book groups everywhere that your group should try Jane Gardam’s oddly titled novel, Old Filth.  Do not let your group members be deterred by the strange-sounding title or the rather stately Europa Editions (wonderful publisher, by the way) cover.  (I rather prefer the current UK cover, myself–see below).  Old Filth is [...]

Book lovers need to know about the social networking and wiki tools that are popping up around the Internet. Sites like Library Thing (http://www.librarything.com) and Shelfari (http://www.shelfari.com) offer a suite of tools that allow readers everywhere to document personal book lists, libraries, and reading experiences. At their most basic, these sites allow readers to collect a virtual [...]

Have you discovered Laura Lippman yet?  I just finished reading her superb 2007 crime novel,  What the Dead Know, and I can’t say enough good things about it.  I think it would be a great choice for a book discussion. Previously I’d read an earlier Lippman book,  No Good Deeds, the most recent entry in [...]

  The gay district of Seattle, once clustered on Capitol Hill, is disintegrating. Broadway, the colorful centerpiece street, has been swallowed up by supermarkets. The Gay Pride parade has been diverted from its historic street and transplanted into Seattle Center. Rents have skyrocketed. Bars and gay social services have had to close their doors to [...]

Has anyone else seen this commercial? It opens with a trim, perky blonde woman talking to the audience about how much she loves books and reading and talking about reading. She’s so excited because she just found a book group where the women (apparently the group is solely composed of women. Is that redundant? A [...]

This week my book group discussed Philip Roth’s Everyman.  The novel is loosely based on a 15th century morality play that some of the members also read. Everyman starts at a gravesite at the funeral of the main character.  His children are gathered there, his second wife, and his brother.  His daughter and brother offer [...]

The publication of Steampunk, an anthology of reprinted stories and excerpts, provides a great opportunity for adventurous book groups looking to explore an unusual theme. “Steampunk” derives its name from its mixture of steam-driven 19th century technologies and a punk attitudes that subvert the staid social and political conventions of those times. Stories and novels in this [...]