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

Oprah invites the authors to her book discussions.  Publishers are now encouraging readers to contact authors to participate in discussions of their books, if not in person, then via the telephone.  Several members of my book discussion group have speculated that having an author join us for a session might be “fun,” but somehow the [...]

I’ve got two book reviews due in the next four days, and I’ll be lucky to finish one of them. Besides which, I’ve got one month left to put together the list of the six books we’ll be reading for the second half of 2009 in the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Book Club. There’s a [...]

A few posts ago on March 12th, I asked the question:  would you use a book in a series for a book discussion?  In that case book three in a series seemed to work.  To my great surprise, I find myself riding the same horse with this book.  It was not until I was finished [...]

One of the book groups I attend read Kate Christensen this month. She’s an American author who has four books but hasn’t quite become a household name. She would make a marvelous choice for your book group.  Christensen specializes in what she call Loser Lit. Her characters are often failures. Charismatic failures, who make unreliable [...]

If you’re located in the Great Lakes area and want to explore regional literature with your book goup, keep an eye on Great Lakes, Great Reads,  a new program of the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers  Association.   GLiBA plans to choose several new books of regional interest a month, and promote them with author visits and marketing materials. [...]

After Mary Ellen’s post on some recent French fiction garnering a lot of buzz, I thought about another French novel I read recently that would be perfect for book groups. Anna Gavalda’s Hunting and Gathering is a winsome novel about a group of misfits who find one another in Paris. Camille is an artist who [...]

Recently, six readers gathered at the Kansas City Public Library‘s Plaza Library as part of the joint book group effort between KCPL and The Kansas City Star.  This month’s selection was the second novel from Lawrence, Kansas author, Laura Moriarty‘s The Rest of Her Life. Comments and perceptions focused on the realistic and sympathetic, but not always likeable, characters. [...]

Lady of the Snakes by Rachel Pastan poses the question that many women have been asking themselves in the modern age–can women manage to successfully juggle their career, motherhood and marriage? Jane Levitsky is a young, determined academic who had an unplanned pregnancy along the way to her pursuit of tenure. She did marry the [...]

Lest anyone read Red April because of my enthusiastic blog yesterday, let me warn you what I stumbled into, totally unprepared, late last night. Maybe this is a cultural difference. Am I being too sensitive, too feminist here? But it’s the most unlikeable thing a central character has done in a novel for a long [...]

I lucked out! It’s what every reading addict hopes and prays will happen – the book you bring home for the weekend turns out to be the perfect choice as it takes over your life. I’ve only got 60 pages left, and I’m just making myself stop long enough to jot down this blog before [...]

I’ve just come home from being a member of another book club. I’d been waiting for the third Saturday of the month to make my two-bus pilgrimage up to Capitol Hill to attend a meeting of the “other” gay book club in Seattle, Q-Squared Book Group. The #49 bus dropped me off on Broadway a [...]

At the library, my co-workers and I just have to laugh when we see yet another vampire book hit the shelves. They really are everywhere anymore. If there were as many vampires in the world as there are vampire books, the rest of us would be in big trouble! But there really is something for [...]

Today I read a post on the Librarian in Black blog about Open Book Club, a podcasted show hosted by Christy Cashman and Debbie DiMasi and described as “a no holds barred conversation with amazing authors about their books.”  Besides a monthly book discussion, they offer a mailing list, a discussion forum, and an option to register [...]

  I think there is a danger in being a reviewer for a long time.  Rather than sit back and enjoy the ride, the reading experience is shared with note taking and analysis that often spoils the sheer joy of reading.  It also means each genre is approached with a list of expectations that must [...]

Eliza Minot’s The Brambles was so good, and to think I was putting it off, thinking “not another Minot novel”! It’s perfect for readers who enjoy family dramas and love character. Margaret, Max, and Edie are the three adult Bramble siblings struggling with family, work, self-identity, their mother’s tragic plane accident, and their father’s deteriorating health. [...]

Spying? Me? Well, sure, for the right cause, I’m up for a little covert operation. When rivals spring up, investigation is called for. I’m up for crossing the border into enemy territory to see what I can see. Back during the planning stages for the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Book Club, we sincerely thought we [...]

While meandering aimlessly around the Internet this morning, much like a couch potato might with the remote, I landed on a blog that is going onto my list of “blogs to check as regularly as my schedule permits.” It’s Three Guys One Book. What you read is what you get. It’s three guys (and a recently added [...]

Would the Bolivian novel, Andean Express, by Juan de Recacoechea, be a good choice for a book group discussion? It certainly didn’t turn out to be what I expected. Thirty pages from the end, I almost stopped reading. I wasn’t sure it was worth my time to finish it. None of what I’d expected had [...]

The good news is that with this title, Bamboo and Blood (2008) by James Church, it does not matter.  James Church is the pseudonym of a former Western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Korea.  This is the third book in this series following A Corpse in the Koryo (2006) and Hidden Moon (2007).  [...]

When was the last time a book review made you laugh? I mean really laugh–like the involuntary laughter that busts out of you while reading on the bus? Most book reviews aren’t written to make you laugh. Most book reviewers don’t invite you into their private lives. (What does Michiko Kakutani watch at night, I [...]