Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

There’s not enough hijinks at books groups. We need more. I’m going to start with having one of my groups read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Of course, we’ll pair that with the original Pride and Prejudice and then do a judicious comparison. We’ll look at changes in characters (dead [...]

Community read programs can be a great source for identifying titles that might work for your book group. Here’s a rundown of some current community read programs.
Fox Cities Reads (WI) is reading the novels of Wisconsin author Michael Perry.
One Book, Everybody Reads at Wilmette and Kenilworth (IL) Public Libraries is reading The Man Who Loved China by Simon [...]

 
Now that The Maltese Falcon is a Big Read title, more and more people may be asking themselves why Sam Spade was willing to say, “When a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t matter what you thought of him. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do [...]

Some random questions came to mind for which I would love some answers from the readers out there (just how many of you are there, anyway?).
 The first question I pose as I am expecting a second child and will be taking maternity leave in the fall, which means I will need someone to fill [...]

 
While I believe that most crime and mystery fiction readers are attracted to a book because of the character, it is also true that the setting of the book can be a strong draw as well. 
 

 
 
I remember well the first time I encountered Napoleon Bonaparte doing a walkabout crime in Arthur Upfield’s classic traditional mysteries [...]

  Some months the stress is worse than others. Some months are easy. I know exactly what book will be ideal for the University Book Store’s book club. Other months aren’t so easy. Like this month.
For a while I thought I had it made – Andrea Askowitz’s My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy seemed like a [...]

My sister emailed me the other day with a book suggestion.  Her local book discussion group in Largo, Florida, had just read The Ginseng Hunter by Jeff Talarigo.  She thought it was a book I would like because I made a trip to China with ALA in 2006 and the trip was a fond memory.
Doesn’t [...]

Last week I suggested the first six steps of twelve, the less intrusive methods for combatting interruptions in your book group. The second half of this 12-step program brings out the big guns, six increasingly dramatic responses to more chronic interruption problems.
7) STEER BACK TO THE INTERRUPTED
When an interruption occurs, quickly and neutrally steer the conversation back to the [...]

  Zack Hara, the narrator of Todd Shimoda’s gorgeously-produced new novel, Oh!, can’t feel intense emotion. He’s left Los Angeles behind, and gone to live in Japan and teach English conversation. One of his students turns out to be a psychologist who studies the biology of personality, and Professor Imai begins giving Zack guidance in exchange [...]

Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge has won the 2009 Pulizter Prize for fiction. LitLovers has background information, a collection of reviews, and discussion questions

  When was the last time you read a Basque novel? The charmingly-titled Plants Don’t Drink Coffee by Unai Elorriaga drew me in by its name alone, and the narration on the opening page was just goofy and endearing enough to make me turn the page and continue. The narrator is apparently a child talking [...]

Last night, in honor of National Library Week, I led a workshop at a library in a neighboring suburb.  I called it “Pump Pizzazz into Your Book Discussion,” as the idea for the program was to provide ideas for local book groups that feel their discussions are beginning to lack vitality.  One of the concerns that was [...]

We can start with “is she really a virgin?”
But let’s back up a bit. This year’s Kansas Reads… selection was Nancy Pickard’s standalone suspense novel, The Virgin of Small Plains.
At the end of March, the very vocal, articulate, careful readers of Bonner Springs (KS) Library gathered for the last program in their old library location [...]

Interruptions are the bane of many book groups, a chronic problem that can destroy the flow of discussion, create ill will between readers, and distract the group from its most important points. This week I’ll provide the first half of hints for dealing with interruptions. I’ll start with suggestions that should cure a minor interruption problem and [...]

Keir Graff is having an interesting conversation about historical fiction over at Likely Stories.  This all started with the latest issue of REaD ALERT, the Booklist Online newsletter, where he asked whether historical fiction is still hot.  A number of people have sent him e-mails in response, and he’s posted them on his blog.
If your reading [...]

“Call me Zits.” That’s how Sherman Alexie’s novel Flight begins. Zits is a half-breed Indian 15-year-old who has been through twenty foster families after his mother died of breast cancer when he was six. He struggles with anger, loss, betrayal and violence on his path to survival and young adulthood.
When my book group discussed this slim [...]

Kansas City Public Library’s Common Grounds book group gathered on a snowy Saturday to wander the halls of Tobias Wolff’s debut novel, Old School. Christa and Michael both liked the selection and wished more readers had braved the weather to discuss it.
Michael’s “copy” of the book was especially interesting to the other attendees. He brought [...]

I don’t want it to end. I’ve got to stay away from it, to make it last through the weekend, but I keep going back for more. I’ve got less than two hundred pages to go in the new book by the author of The White Tiger, and that doesn’t seem nearly enough. Those pages [...]

Does your book group feel tense, bored, tired, frustrated, even hostile? Looking to create a better atmosphere? Five or six comments per meeting might be all it takes to turn a mediocre group into one that is happy, productive, and closely knit. Small comments that reward participation, encourage discussion, or show other readers that you notice them will [...]

  I’ve known it was coming. I’ve been waiting for it. Suddenly I’ve got an advance, and in a matter of hours it’s jumped to the top of my reading pile. It’s called Between the Assassinations, and it’s a collection of linked short stories unfolding in the town of Kittur on the southwest coast of [...]