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Book groups are social, and taking book groups online generally means that a big part of the social aspect  is lost.  Book Glutton is a  Web site that combines Web 2.0 tools with e-books  to create  a new social approach to reading.  First, you sign up (it’s free) and then either choose a book to upload or  request an invite from [...]

On Tuesday I thought I’d pack the house for Junot Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Possibly due to the torrential rains and winds of the night before and the damp afternoon, it turned out to be a small group of six. I anticipated some conflict–Oscar Wao is not a book for [...]

  Reading Group Choices has just released its list of 2008 book group favorites. How many of these were your group’s favorites too? 1.  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen 2. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan 3. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin 4. The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls 5. [...]

The problem with Elina Hirvonen’s When I Forgot is finding a place to stop. The narrative of this slender, lightning-fast Finnish novel, the most internationally successful debut novel in Finnish history, propels you along without the hint of a stopping point, one startling, violent or surprising scene feeding directly into another, or story within story [...]

Check out this video by Booklisters Keir Graff and Dan Kraus. Not much discussion going on; we’re so busy reading books we don’t have time to talk about them.

Yeah, I’ve heard it before: Your book group wants to achieve the shared joy that only comes from reading the same book together then collectively beating it into the ground with at least an hour of discussion. It’s the current style for whole communities to join together in reading One Book, why shouldn’t your group [...]

Last month, I lost two dear friends from my Saturday morning book club. They were two of the founding members and besides being articulate and thoughtful readers, they became great buddies and we wound up doing many more things besides talking about books every other month. I think pub trivia and museum wine events surpassed [...]

Do you have any readers who like the traditional mystery?  Do you have a reading group that might eschew more towards the cozy then the hardboiled?  Then you can celebrate the announcement of the 2009 Agatha Awards announced over the weekend at the Malice Domestic mystery convention. It is the intent of the award to [...]

  I first read it a year ago, in June. I was so much happier then. I was in love, and Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt is the ultimate love story. Re-reading it now, eleven months later, as I’m saying goodbye to that same love, counting the days and minutes until he moves away [...]

Ayelet Waldman created quite a controversy when she wrote an article for the New York Times proclaiming that she loved her children but she wasn’t in love with them–she was in love with her husband (who happens to be Michael Chabon). The article set off a firestorm on blogs and listservs and even on the Oprah Winfrey [...]

The Libraries of Greater Kansas City have joined forces for a bi-state Big Read project. We’ve been reading Old School by Tobias Wolff since April 1 and I’ve been talking about it since March 31. By talking I mean leading book groups. I led my eighth book group last week and I have to say, [...]

  Her voice is intoxicating. It’s like no one else writing. She’s tough, honest, and angry as a bull in the ring – but though the odds are stacked against Faiza Guene’s twenty-five-year-old heroine, there’s never any question of Ahleme going down without a fight. Ever since her mother died and her family fled from [...]

Our staff reader’s advisory book discussion this month featured a local writer, Lesley Kagen and her first book, Whistling in the Dark.  This book is about a young girl named Sally O’Malley, her long dead father, her vamp of a mother, her younger step-sister Troo, and an entire cast of characters who populate Vliet Street [...]

I want to follow up on Gary’s post about the Edgar winners by noting winners in two more categories:       Best Young Adult: Paper Towns, by John Green         Best Juvenile: The Postcard, by Tony Abbott

I always find the Edgar Award nominees a rich field to plow for likely titles for a crime or mystery book discussion.  Last night, MWA announced this year’s winners (and here they are): Best Novel Blue Heaven by C.J. Box (St. Martin’s Minotaur) Nominees Missing by Karin Alvtegen (Felony & Mayhem Press) Sins of the [...]

    Mary Ellen previously mention one book one community discussions and the timing could not have been perfect.  Last night the Greendale Public Library held its spring Greendale Reads and our title was Jemmy by Jon Hassler.  While we have not been very successful in attracting a community wide effort for these reads twice [...]

A meeting of poetry is a great variation for any book group. It’s easy to prepare, an excellent last minute substitute when the book you planned to use proves difficult to obtain or when the reader whose turn it was to select a topic fails to appear. It’s a great choice when you need something short to [...]