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Just a short post to announce the 2008 Man Booker Prize Longlist of nominated titles.  Not surprisingly, at least one of the nominated titles has been mentioned here on the ‘Buzz by prolific reader and blogger, Nick.  Nick and Kaite, I applaud you both for always being ahead of the trends and taking the rest [...]

They’re piled so high now I’ve forgotten the ones that are underneath. Advance reader copies from publishers, the new titles about to be released, the new Jose Saramago, the new Marilynne Robinson, new Spanish novels and French novels and several from Argentina, well, and those are just some of the ones I remember. It’s high [...]

WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU BEEN READING?  I tried something new at my book group meeting last week — scheduling 10 minutes at the end of the session to talk about other books the participants have read recently.  This isn’t exactly a revolutionary concept, as book group members often refer to other books during the discussions, [...]

More buzz about The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Yesterday a review in The Christian Science Monitor;  this morning an interview on NPR with one of the authors, Annie Barrows, who finished the book after her aunt, Mary Ann Shaffer, died. I have to say I don’t absolutely love this book, which I [...]

  If Disney has taken the pulse of modern day culture correctly, then the new Tinkerbell movie is a gamble that little girls are still innocent enough to have fairy fantasies. Sure, I can believe that, the dear little things. However, Stephenie Meyer has recently proved to the publishing industry that girls just slightly older [...]

  For years, I have been hearing how marvelous Shirley Jackson novels are from friends and patrons.  Of course, I read her famous short story “The Lottery” in high school.  Who didn’t?  This week I finally picked up Jackson’s classic chiller, The Haunting of Hill House. I knew it was going to be a little [...]

Anyone interested in messing with the heads of their book group members should suggest The Heroines by Eileen Favorite. This fanciful debut novel is full of literary humor poked liberally at the dramatic, tragic, soap-operatic heroines of the classics. Budding teenager Penny Entwhistle is helping her mother, Anne-Marie, operate a home-based bed and breakfast business in [...]

What’s happening to me? Usually I read a couple novels a week. Now I’m lucky to finish even one. I haven’t turned in any book reviews to Shelf Awareness. I missed my last blog on Book Group Buzz. My pick-of-the-month for University Book Store was supposed to be announced last Monday, and hasn’t even been [...]

  I’m eagerly anticipating this week’s release of the new film version of Brideshead Revisited.  By all accounts, it is just as successful as the 11-part series that aired on  Masterpiece Theatre almost 30 years ago (who would sit still for an 11-part series these days?). For book groups, there’s a short Brideshead Revisited discussion guide [...]

Some fascinating nonfiction on top level play in two brainy boardgames would be good selections for your next book group meeting. Paul Hoffman’s The King’s Gambit: A Son, A Father, and the World’s Most Dangerous Game mixes the author’s memoir of his relationship with his dishonest father with a tale of returning to competitive chess [...]

Do you ever consider using  novels that are marketed as YA in your book group? Interesting essay in The New York Times the other day about the fine line between adult and YA novels.  Among the authors the essay mentions is Peter Cameron, who has written several adult novels and thought he was writing Someday This Pain [...]

Book group leaders who have access through their libraries to the superb reading resource database NoveList are probably already familiar with the book discussion guides it offers.  Those who don’t know about NoveList should check with their libraries to find out if the library makes it available and if they can view it (there is an [...]

  Rereading has been the topic of numerous essays and books.  Anne Fadiman edited an anthology of essays about rereading, entitled Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love.  Or there’s Wendy Lesser’s Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering.  I was reflecting on this topic the other day when a woman in my book group, [...]

  I’ve just been crying over the new collection of Yoshihiro Tatsumi stories. It’s called Good-Bye – nine unflinching, realistic portraits of postwar Japan told in the style of my childhood comic books. All I did was open the lovely new book from Drawn and Quarterly and read the first page of the first story. [...]

No, this isn’t a 12-step support group for people who read too much and the folks who love them. But it would be an interesting name for a book group that put the “lib” in “libation.” Over at Omnivoracious they’ve been speculating on pairing books with beers. Quite a few writers weighed in the topic [...]

Here’s why I love a thematic approach to book groups: one of my groups met last night. The topic was immortality and rejuvenation. We’re a science fiction and fantasy group, but my readers are a perversely quirky bunch with strong penchants for picking the surprising book and following the conversation wherever it may go. Bud, our [...]

Way back in May, Kaite wrote a post about a book that would make perfect August reading. Well August is almost here, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is starting to get a lot of buzz.  It was featured on NPR as part of Booksellers’ Suggestions for a Summer Afternoon, and an article [...]

FEMME FATALE:  WOMEN AND CRIME  September 25, 2008:  FALLING OFF AIR by Catherine Sampson.  October 23, 2008:  CALIFORNIA GIRL by T. Jefferson Parker.  November 20, 2008:  ROSE by Martin Cruz Smith.  January 22, 2009:  OUTSIDE VALENTINE by Liza Ward.  February 26, 2009:  HIDDEN by Paul Jaskunas.  March 26, 2009:  DEATH FROM THE WOODS by Brigitte [...]

Harking back to suggestion #8 in Neil’s list of “how to beat the book club doldrums,” here are some books-into-movies that are coming soon to a book club/movie theatre near you: Book club favorite from 2003, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is scheduled to open around the holidays (dates, of course, subject to change [...]

Yesterday afternoon I watched a classroom of nineteen sophomores and juniors from Washington and Idaho, all young writers, as they listened to me reading aloud “My Cancer Summer,” slowly realize that the author of the essay – the man sitting in front of them reading – didn’t have cancer. He had HIV. I’d hurried over from [...]