Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

The One Book, One Chicago program has just announced its latest selection: The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros. The Chicago Public Library site has resource guides in both English and Spanish.

When did my compulsive listing of characters begin?
I think it was reading the Oz books in middle school. I was trying to create a concordance between the fourteen Oz books written by L. Frank Baum and his related novels. I was horrified to find there were discrepancies. I think from there it went to [...]

This is the third and final post in a short series of hints for how you can get better at discussing books. Last week I suggested three behaviors to avoid at book group. Let’s finish on the positive side: three ways to become a book group guru.
1) BE SPECIFIC
Perhaps the most common problem that plagues boring [...]

 
 
Book groups take note: Chris Cleave’s Little Bee, which Misha posted about last month,  is getting lots of notice. Nora Rawlinson did a heavy reserve alert for it on her Early Word blog, and one reviewer called it the next Kite Runner.  It was also selected by Indie Booksellers for the February 2009 Indie Next List.  Simon & Schuster has [...]

As we tuck into our third book in the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Book Club, we’re now halfway down the list of announced selections, and soon I’ll have to come up with the six titles for the second half of the year. And in the same way that you go into a book discussion feeling [...]

There has been a lot of press over the past few days about the U.S. publication of The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell’s 983-page opus that won the Prix Goncourt in 2006.  Now hitting book stores and libraries in the U.S. the novel has received ”a dramatically polarized critical response,” as Motoko Rich wrote in a  New York Times article.  [...]

 
My monthly crime fiction book discussion group has just completed Paul Jaskunas’s Hidden, the only novel written by this fine writer. There is a reader’s guide for this novel at  http://www.simonandschuster.net/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=507650&agid=10
This was a challenging book for my group to read because the narrator is a tad unreliable.  She is Maggie Wilson, the former wife of Nate Duke.  [...]

Go to jail or join a book club?
I just noticed an interesting article in the New York Times today about prison book groups. The program is called Changing Lives Through Literature and aims to open the minds and perspectives of inmates.

My husband and I recently met with two other families to discuss Alfie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishment to Love and Reason. We had met these families through a local parent listserv and were eager to talk with other families who are thoughtful in their parenting choices.
One thing that you learn as [...]

Last week, I made suggestions about how you can turn a little preparation into a better book group experience, but advance preparation will only get you so far. Here are three more simple suggestions to make you better at talking about books once the meeting actually starts. This week, I’ll focus on what not to do–three [...]

A teacher friend of mine told me he is having his senior English class read Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons for a class assignment. Mark has always been a fan of Watchmen and he showed me his dog-eared bedraggled copy of days ago and said he was on his tenth reading.
Any book [...]

I’m not that keen on the reviewing part.
Most of the stuff about book clubs I thoroughly enjoy. I’m really into the discussion. I love discovering the way everyone reads a book differently. I don’t mind sending out the monthly emails. I don’t mind sending to publishers for advances. Coming up with promotion copy can be [...]