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

An author visit can be a lovely change of pace from the usual meeting, and I would encourage most book groups to try one some time. However, all author visits are not created equal. A bad visit can be a face-to-face infomercial for a product that nobody is buying,  or worse, awkwardly quiet, damned by obviously faint praise, or [...]

When I decided that our crime fiction book discussion group was going to focus on Youth is Wasted On the Young this year I deliberately tried to stay away from books that featured children dying.  I already knew that this issue, not unlike animals being slaughtered, is on the do not read list of a [...]

Is your book group using Facebook? I stubbornly kept away due to privacy concerns, and because I didn’t need one more drain on my time. But as it became apparent that most of my acquaintances, groups, and organizations are conducting business on Facebook, I decided it was time to put aside my reservations. I started about three months ago. Yes, [...]

The educators at Stambaugh Middle School (Auburndale, FL) are taking some lessons from Hogwarts. They’ve created a book group around the Harry Potter books that not only introduces the joy of reading to students, but also helps them improve reading comprehension, writing skills, and even civic responsibility. It’s no wonder that the books are seeing [...]

I am becoming quite the Guardian Online junkie. I just love their coverage of book news, reviews and author interviews. They cover books and authors that you don’t always see in the usual places and, because it’s a British publication, come at things from a different perspective. Also, there is an online book group. And [...]

When it comes to books on current events my discussion groups are divided. Some readers want the latest bestselling political nonfiction titles to discuss and others don’t want that much scholarly detail getting in the way of a good story. Recently, USAToday featured four young adult novels on the Iraq war that will also appeal [...]

As promised, I’m writing to share some aspects of my library book group’s discussion of the controversial crime thriller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  You may recall that I wrote earlier about my concerns in approaching this particular title because of its violent sexual content, and readers of this blog reassured me that the [...]

Neil wrote a lovely post recently about how it’s hard to be bookish in these days where the demise of the printed book gets bandied about with faddish regularity. People are often spouting or simply repeating some death-knell proclamation they heard on the radio or somewhere about how books are going to die and libraries [...]

Here’s another great websites for book groupers to add to their surfing schedule: The Millions. Editor C. Max Magee and a fine group of staff writers and guest contributors have put together a site with superb coverage of literature and the arts. The books that they feature tend to be the kind that would make [...]

It’s not that I’m fickle, it’s that I run across so many good resources that help me pick out titles for the plethora of reading groups I assist. My latest treasure is the newly published Read This Next by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark. The authors, both previously published novelists (but they didn’t include their [...]

Mysterious Undertakings at Waldo Community Library, a branch of The Kansas City Public Library, gladly agreed to accommodate a drop in visitor who took copious notes and photographs. But then Waldo welcomes all newcomers and on this particular night, there was more than one newbie. Mysterious Undertakings meets the first Monday of every month in [...]

The fantasy and science fiction book group at Williamsburg Regional Library gathered last night for our annual Halloween meeting. The group reads on a different theme each month, and having explored other Halloween topics like vampires, werewolves, witches, and ghosts in previous years, this time we turned to 2010′s hottest monster: the zombie. The most [...]

I have been a champion of the writing of Thomas H. Cook who I believe to be one of the best historical writers, one of the best regional writers, one of the best psychological profilers, etc. etc.  So it was with great enthusiasm that I reached for the brand new Cook novel, The Last Talk [...]

They’re raising them up right at North Kansas City Public Library. This library is unique in the Kansas City metro-area for being the only combination high school-public library and it serves a diverse community of adults and young adults. For the past four years, library media specialists Abby Yellman and Kristie Carney have been pulling [...]

Ellen Baker’s Keeping the House is a story-within-a-story, told with a deft hand and smooth pace.  Baker tells the story of a weathy Wisconsin logging family family from 1896 through the end of World War I, and the parallel story of a woman named Dolly bucking convention in the 1950s. Free-spirited Dolly doesn’t have anything [...]

I have a twisted fascination for book covers that look alike. Right after I chortle, I wonder what the publishers’ art departments were thinking. They must not get out much. I understand trends in type styles and images, but the last pair of book covers? That’s just blatantly obvious and creatively unforgivable. Exhibit A: A [...]

I confess that I just read Josephine Tey for the first time. What took me so long? Well, I also confess that I am not nearly as widely read as I want to be. I don’t read nearly enough mysteries every year, or romances, or science fiction or fantasy novels either. So I am taking [...]

In October, have your book group celebrate twice over with Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg. This perennial book group favorite is a natural fit for National Reading Group Month and National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Berg’s compact, moving story is never maudlin or preachy. A group of friends gather to help one of their [...]

The finalists for the 2010 National Book Awards were announced Wednesday by Pat Conroy from the childhood home of Flannery O’Connor. The nominees for Fiction are: Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule Nicole Krauss, Great House Lionel Shriver, So Much for That Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel Carey is [...]

I’ve written several times here on Book Group Buzz about the value of using plays occasionally as your group’s selection. In particular, I love dividing up parts and reading all or part of a play aloud. It’s a vastly entertaining variation on the standard meeting that will give your group a new perspective on the [...]