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Mary Ellen’s recent column quote about her friend says, “Although she thinks it’s a wonderful book, she says it’s a bit too literary for her particular book group.” At last I can admit that occasionally I read a book that I like that I feel is too challenging to discuss with anyone I know.  Not my [...]

When you’re walking in nostalgia wonderland, it’s best to go with friends. It’s ironic–No, that’s too nice: It’s ANNOYING that during this month in which we have the least spare time that there are more books competing for our attention than any other time of year. I’ve already written about what I think about Christmas books. The booksellers [...]

A friend of mine who leads the book discussion group in her library is reading the 2009 fiction National Book Award winner, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. Although she thinks it’s a wonderful book, she says it’s a bit too literary for her particular book group.  If you think it might work for [...]

The  compilation begins in October as Steve Paul, a Senior Editor at The Kansas City Star, emails/texts/badgers all his reading friends for their top titles of 2009. We know he has a deadline, but we’re just as frantic as we page through our reading logs and sort the piles of books we’ve scanned, skimmed, reviewed, [...]

Following up on Gary and Neil’s posts about everyone in the book group reading and talking about a different book, I’d like to share how the staff of the Arlington Heights (IL) Memorial Library is utilizing this concept to study various fiction genres. A group of library staffers who serve adult readers meets quarterly, for [...]

Book groups looking for an old-fashioned story that mixes elements of gentle reads with the pointed realities of rural living may enjoy a rediscovered classic, The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton. As bucolic as the setting may be, it also pulls out the darker sides of all the characters in the book. On the surface, [...]

Here’s a holiday dilemma: Do you buy presents for your book group? If you’re particularly well off, or the member of a very small book group, this isn’t so difficult. Books themselves aren’t the most expensive gifts in the world, and the Internet is an easy source of gimcracks and doodads for book lovers. Try [...]

As Neil has recently pointed out, memoirs are always popular reading and many provide great topics for discussion. One of my favorite types of memoirs for reading and discussing is the occupational memoir, books written about the jobs people do. Our worksites hold significant places in our daily lives. After family and friends, work is [...]

My friend and mentor David Carr (who during his years at UNC helped so many of us who now specialize in readers’ advisory learn how to think about libraries, books, and the communities and people who use them) sent me this YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_jyXJTlrH0 I don’t know the work or author in question, nor is that work my focus here. Besides [...]

I just finished Stephen King’s latest, Under the Dome.  It made me wonder, in regards to book groups, would a group ever be willing to read something THIS long?  It clocks in at 1074 pages, and weighs so much that it cut off circulation in my hands at one point. It didn’t take me more [...]