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

Barbara Mead of Reading Group Choices wants Book Group Buzz readers to know that Reading Group Choices 2010: Selections for Lively Book Discussions, 16th edition, is now available: Reading Group Choices 2010, the annual publication from the book club resource, Reading Group Choices, has arrived! This wonderful booklet contains 75 books carefully chosen to be of [...]

The electronic book has arrived at one of my book groups. At my SF/fantasy group, one of our regulars has taken to bringing his electronic reader instead of actual books. I’ll admit up front, I have rather extreme views on this subject. Frankly, I think electronic books are an ungainly technology with little upside that large [...]

I can’t think of a single person I know who reads and doesn’t also listen intently to a particular form of music. Book group members are always talking about what they listen to while they read, unless they are listening to what they read. Wouldn’t it be interesting to discuss music in the same way [...]

Did you know that Joyce Carol Oates was born a conjoined twin? The tragedy of little Carol Joyce receives oblique references in most of her sister’s writing to this day. Or that Pat Conroy chose his pen name because he was with Elvis in the week that the King died? (Does “con roi” ring any bells, French speakers?) It’s [...]

By way of today’s article in The New York Times  about reading on the subway, I’ve discovered The Subway Book Club, which started in July with one man’s idea of choosing what to read next by looking around the subway car at fellow riders’  book choices. So far those have included, among others, The Emperor’s Children by [...]

Keir alerted me to an item from yesterday’s New York Times, “How to Discuss ‘Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters’.”  Among the questions proposed in the discussion guide for the latest Jane Austen/horror mash-up: Have you ever been attacked by giant lobsters, either literally of figuratively?  What would be worse: being eaten by a shark [...]

Am I the last person to know this?  (Don’t answer that question!) October is National Reading Group Month. I lead a book discussion but I have never received a card. According to this article the Women’s National Book Association has sponsored this for two previous years. So, now that the word is out (to me), I [...]

There’s great excitement at my house, as my wife has been cast as Tracy  Lord in a local community theater production of The Philadelphia Story, a play by Philip Barry. For those of you whose only reference is the 1940 film, Tracy Lord is the Katharine Hepburn part (no pressure there, huh, mon cher?) Given that our [...]