Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

Not everyone cries easily over fiction. I do. All it takes is a little too much caffeine in my system and a sad parting (like the sergeant saying goodbye to his beloved mule at the end of The Mule) or an unexpected moment of coming together (the bus stop blessing at the end of Gilead) [...]

 
For those of you familiar with Stephenie Meyer’s popular teen vampire series that starts with Twilight, you know they are not high-brow literature.  And that’s exactly why teens and adults love them.
Set in Forks, Washington, the series centers around high school girl Bella Swan and the vampire of her eye, the dashing and chivalrous Edward Cullen, and [...]

What was England like during and after World War II for children?  What must it have been like to come-of-age during a time of rationing and bombing?  Anyone who has seen John Boorman’s film “Hope and Glory” realizes the power a child’s-eye view can provide in our understanding of a particular place and time.
I happen to love coming-of-age [...]

Here’s my last post in a series of useful questions to improve the quality of your group’s discussion of any book.
Question 1: How did the setting of the book contribute to its impact?
When to use it: When the conversation needs more depth; when this aspect of the book is not getting enough attention
Settings are important [...]

Recently I was pleased to learn that the Villa Park (IL) Public Library, where I served as the administrator for over 20 years before retiring in 1999, held a Staff Development Day that featured book discussions.  The library has been offering book discussions for the public for many years and currently has three groups meeting [...]

“I don’t like short stories.” How often have I heard that in our book club and in the bookstore? Reading addicts often want to be entrenched in a long narrative, caught up in the rushing current of a strong plot, immersed in the heady waters of suspense and surprise, returning again and again to the [...]

One of my favorite subgenres in narrative nonfiction is occupational memoirs. I’ve read some good ones in the past couple of years and I’m trying to figure out how to work them into a series for my book group. I want to provide my group with a list of books and a list of topics [...]

I’m late again. How is that possible? My promotion materials were due in the marketing department on Monday. I always used to be on time. I should have announced the September book of the month three days ago, and I still don’t even know which book it will be.
  Xiaolu Guo’s Twenty Fragments of a [...]

 
Peace.  Richard Bausch.  Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.  978-0-307-26833-4. 
Richard Bausch is just a few years older than I am so I am going to claim that he and I are of the same generation.  I suspect that his father’s experiences fighting in World War II may have influenced his son as Bausch grew up with sensibilities imparted [...]

 In honor of my visit to Minneapolis/St. Paul this week, I want to do a little shout out to the downtown library in Minneapolis.  I was blown away by this library, its spaces, displays, collections and staff.  The children’s department was a real gem, and their vibrant, whimsical displays created by local firm Blue Rhino [...]

Here’s another installment of four questions that a book group leader or concerned participant should be ready to use when the discussion is lagging.
Question 1: What is the central conflict in the book?
When to use it: When discussion of the book is scattered and missing the main point
A few odd comments can send your group [...]

Like most book group leaders, I’m always looking around for something interesting to do with my faithful attendees to keep the gathering fresh and fun and unpredictable.
There have been plenty of great suggestions in this blog for how to spice up the meeting when chat has taken a u-turn into dullsville. I’ve used most of [...]

  A book’s attractiveness matters. Pretty books attract the eye and are picked up more often in bookstores. I know because I’ve ordered books for the little bookstore on the north campus of the University of Washington for over thirty years. I’ve watched excellent books with bad covers fall unnoticed by the wayside, and mediocre [...]

I’ve just finished reading two new books back to back, and I can only say that both reading experiences were completely satisfying, both were modern Asian novels, both were short, both were written by women, both were just published, and these two books couldn’t possibly be less alike.
Natsuo Kirino’s Real World   follows four teenage [...]

Over the past 30 years, I’ve led many workshops that attempted to hone the skills of fledgling book discussion leaders.  In spite of starting out with the same outline and notes, no two workshops ever turned out quite the same way — rather like multiple discussions of the same book.  These programs have a way [...]

Most of you have already heard the term “cozy.”  It’s a term coined for the type of books you can easily hand your grandmother–they’re mostly free of (or light on) sex, violence, profanity or those pesky open or sad endings you find in most contemporary fiction.
A colleague send me an e-mail recently, alerting me to a [...]

Whether you are the official leader and facilitator of a book group or just a helpful participant, it’s important to have resources to which you can turn when the discussion isn’t working. Here are four useful questions to keep ready in your conversational toolbox.
Question 1: To whom do you think this book would appeal? To what kind [...]

The order matters. Alluring books get readers to come to meetings. The sequence of books discussed becomes a chronicle of the growth of the reading group. Start off a book club with three bad choices, and chances are you no longer have a club. The beginning is where you get reader commitment.
  Which novels or [...]

When I started Steve Martin’s autobiography, Born Standing Up, I didn’t expect to think it might be a good book for discussion.  But when I finished it, getting misty on the Metro bus, I began to think otherwise.
Funnyman, comic, writer, playwright, and actor Steve Martin is as much a topic for discussion as any other [...]

 Weather is the subject of dreary and banal small talk, right?
As I enter another hurricane season in my transplanted southern home, I can’t help but wonder if this is true. We get a mixture of vicarious terror and a shiver of schadenfreude joy from reading about disastrous weather. The other night as I drove to a book group, I was listening to Timothy [...]