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Every year for a week at the end of September and into the beginning of October (Sept. 27-October Oct. 4, 2008), libraries across the country celebrate Banned Books Week with posters, displays, booklists, community forums and events. Thanks to the ALA, Banned Books Week has practically (at least in my world) become a major holiday. It [...]

  Book Group Buzz may not be doing much in October to observe Celebrate Sun Dried Tomatoes Month, National Kitchen and Bath Month, and Squirrel Awarness Month, but we’re definitely on board for National Reading Group Month, which was launched in 2007 by the Women’s National Book Association  (WNBA) “to promote reading groups and to celebrate [...]

I received a delightful piece of mail today wedged in with fliers about upcoming conferences, my second ALA renewal notice, Demco catalogs, and a flask of window cleaner (Joey the Facilities guy has his mailbox above mine, I always get weird bits of metal and plumbing invoices by mistake). My favorite book group resource, Reading [...]

Just how useful is the word classics? Until now the name of Seattle’s city-wide gay reading program, scheduled to begin in January at Dunshee House, has been the Gay Classics Book Club. I’m rethinking that. I’m suspecting maybe that word classics might be limiting, off-putting, might in fact be wisely dropped. In fact, I’ve been [...]

   For years I have been hearing that Georgette Heyer is as close as we will ever come to Jane Austen. Fans of Heyer speak of her in reverant tones, and remember the first Heyer they read in their youth. Luckily, Georgette Heyer’s classic Regencies are being republished by Sourcebooks and Harlequin Books in trade paperback [...]

When you read as many books as I do, you develop a special fondness for any novel that surprises you, that catches you off-guard with a new way of looking at things, that dares to be a little more honest, a little more daring. When I stumble on a new author with real insight or [...]

           I’m getting ready for a big trip. Being a librarian, and a bookworm, this requires the checkout of a few travel guides. Last night my fiancee became mildly upset when one of the stacks of these books fell over and nearly killed her. “Do we really need this many books for one [...]

For certain authors, I feel as though I have not read and never seem to get around to reading what their fans call their best books. This can happen when you come to a writer late, especially one that is alive and still writing.  I find myself reading their newest work, catching up with what is [...]

Yesterday I punched a dear friend in the arm. I mean, I slugged him. Why? Because in our conversation with a fellow bookseller he gave away the surprise in Two Bobbies.   He stared at me, aghast, clutching his arm, and said, “Nick, it’s just a children’s book!” So, you see, he deserved it. He [...]

Discussing plays in a reading group is challenging fun. It’s even more fun when it’s theatre with cultural images and commentary and populated with supernatural creatures. Thursday night I was treated to a full table of informed, articulate and vocal seniors discussing S. Ansky’s masterpiece of Yiddish drama, The Dybbuk. They certainly didn’t need me [...]

I’ll admit, you can’t use it in your reading group.  That said, it was my favorite book of the annual 2008 Portland fall tradeshow of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Association. Sure, I’m Italian. And sure, I’m a lifelong cat admirer. I won’t pretend I’m not aware that Rome is the one major city in the [...]

 Oprah’s latest book club pick has just been announced: it’s David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, a  500-page first novel about a mute boy who communicates best with his dogs.  There’s been quite a bit of buzz about this book already. Barnes and Noble made it one of their seasonal picks for fall, and [...]

Long Way Gone by Ishamel Beah:   (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007) The issue of whether or not readers of contemporary memoir can actually trust the books they are reading is a major one.  The good news is:  it does not matter for book discussion purposes.  In fact, that issue can create the first question you [...]

Why are the people who live in some places happier than those who live elsewhere? How far would you go to find out? Those are the questions at the heart of NPR correspondent Eric Weiner’s entertaining book, The Geography of Bliss. A curmudgeon and world traveler, Weiner spent a year in search of elusive happiness. [...]

As anyone who reads Kaite and David’s delightful and insightful “He Reads…” and “She Reads…” columns will attest, the reading habits of men and women is a fascinating topic.  In this week’s Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King takes on “manfiction” in his essay, “What a Guy Wants.”  As an EW subscriber, I look forward to reading [...]

  I enjoy Alexander McCall Smith’s books, and I’ve been reading his new novel, Corduroy Mansions. I didn’t buy it at the bookstore, or check it out from my library, because it’s only available online at Telegraph.co.uk.  Like Smith’s 44 Scotland Street books,   Corduroy Mansions is being published as a serial, with a new chapter appearing each weekday [...]

I’m secretly packing my suitcase in the spare room, so my cat doesn’t see it. I’ve learned from bitter experience. He knows exactly what the suitcase means. Every year I travel down to Portland for the annual Pacific Northwest Bookseller Association tradeshow, for three days of sampling the autumn titles of all the major publishers, [...]

While attending a reading Saturday night, I was struck with an idea for my book group to enhance a discussion, but I’m not certain we’d have time for book chat when all is said and done. The event I attended was a deft mix of author reading, discussion of the author’s work and performance of [...]

Great works of literature have often inspired other works in large and small ways.  Sometimes that inspiration takes the form of imitation or a classic becomes a jumping off point for another work. I’m talking about how Jean Rhys wrote Wide Sargasso Sea as a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, telling the story of the mad [...]

I’ve just finished Animal Vegetable Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver’s account (with help from her family–husband Steven Hopp and daughter Camille Kingsolver also contribute significantly) of a year of eating locally. After moving from Tucson to a western Virginia farm–a homecoming of sorts, as the authors have Virginia roots–the family decided to spend a full year eating only [...]