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

A new crop of memoirs has emerged this spring that will leave book groups with mouths watering, especially if foodies are among their numbers. Grant Achatz is the chef at Alinea, the highly praised Chicago restaurant that has done so much to popularize the science fair meets inside joke approach of molecular gastronomy. In his memoir,  Life, on [...]

Stewart O’Nan’s Emily, Alone is a moving yet unsentimental look at aging, memory and the simple pleasures of life. It is a follow-up to his novel, Wish You Were Here, which you needn’t have read to enjoy this one. Or, as someone who hasn’t as yet read its predecessor, I have no idea what I [...]

A new study that is scheduled to appear in the journal Psychological Science found that reading about a fictional community gives readers a sense of connection to that community, satisfying a crucial psychological need for belonging that improves well-being. The effect is especially strong in individuals who are more socially oriented in their everyday lives. [...]

I just got lost in a book that is, cliche as it sounds, rather enchanting and beguiling. Kate Morton’s The Forgotten Garden is exactly the kind of book you can lose yourself in if you like complex family secrets, brooding English estates, craven and cursed aristocratic families and plucky young heroines. In 1913, a 4-year-old [...]

Okay, so it’s from the corporate behemoth Amazon.. but I still wanted to point it out as potentially very useful to book clubs. They’ve launched a new part of the site, The Backstory. The Backstory features exclusive author interviews and essays, guest reviews, and more.  I know my book club participants always love it when [...]

You know, the more I think about this, the more I like it…  This article from the Washington Post talks about a woman in Washington, DC, who didn’t enjoy her book club, and really just wanted to talk with others about the The New Yorker… so her friend organized a discussion club! What do you [...]

My science fiction and fantasy book group met earlier this week to explore how well science fiction classics have predicted the future. The meeting generated a fascinating discussion, but let’s just say that on the whole, we wouldn’t hire SF writers to invest the family nest egg. Overall, we found prescient imaginings of inventions that would [...]

THIS is the book party I want to go to next year. The Minnesota Book Awards. I blogged about these awards and the short list of nominees some weeks ago and this past Saturday, April 16, the big awards were announced at a biblio-blow out. Here’s a list of all the winners, but the big [...]

Another nonfiction book group favorite is not faring well under close scrutiny. Greg Mortenson, whose books Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools have inspired book groups everywhere, has not provided good answers so far to questions about the veracity of his books and the conduct of his organization. The extent of his guilt [...]

So, I was all excited to post about the 2011 Indies Choice awards… when I realized, we’ve actually already spent a lot of time on this blog talking about the 2 main winners! The Adult Fiction Book of the Year is Room, by Emma Donoghue, which should be no surprise. The Adult Nonfiction Book of [...]

The Arlington Heights Memorial Library, where I lead a book discussion group every month, has created a resource area for book discussion leaders, both those who conduct programs in the library and library patrons who lead groups composed of friends and neighbors. Twenty reference books containing helpful information of great interest to discussion leaders are [...]

OK, don’t get scared but I am sure you can all relate to this horror story.  I am alone at a three day high school basketball tournament, ready to sit through fifteen games.  Are you with me here?  Fifteen games means fifteen half times, fourteen between game breaks, and about one hundred time outs. What [...]

Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Good Squad just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction! Here is a post I wrote about the book. Here is another post about how well reviewed Egan’s book has been. Congratulations, Jennifer Egan!

The Los Angeles Review of Books is finally launching, having been pushed off from last October.  Publishers Weekly reports that they have an operating budget of $1.5 million, which stuns me!  This should be interesting to see what kind of a force in book reviewing they become. We should see a pretty large contingent of [...]

My favorite television series right now is “Parenthood.” Every week I am swept into the lives of the Bravermans, a loving, mostly functional family whose four adult siblings navigate the bumps, disappointments and joys of life. It’s well written and well acted (Peter Krause is my current favorite–he is so effortless and from his expressions [...]

I’ve always been rather reluctant to select fantasy for discussion in my book groups. My readers don’t seem to care for it (I recall their general ennui regarding Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell) but I think it’s time to try again and I think I’ve found the right title. A Game of Thrones by George [...]

Here’s an idea for a month when your group doesn’t have much time to devote to reading. Instead of discussing a book, spend a meeting exploring how you get your books. In preparation, ask each member to select a different source of books and come to the group ready to report on it. These sources might [...]

Over on another social media site, The Kansas City Public Library is playing the above game with the Facebook public who enjoy reading. In celebration of National Library Week, KCPL assembled a crack team of reading enthusiasts to field reading recommendations from the community. This has been an enlightening, exhausting, challenging experience that has improved [...]

Here’s a nicely researched article on the infiltration of e-readers into book groups from Oroville, California’s Mercury-Register. Is this an issue for any of your groups? Are e-readers showing up in the hands of your readers as often as articles about the devices would lead you to expect? Do any benefits or problems that result?

is admitting you have a problem. Yes, we do. We have a problem. We are book junkies/hoarders/addicts. And it’s evident to anyone who drops in for a visit. Admit it, the bookshelves in other people’s homes are usually the most interesting, and revealing, areas. Who wants to look in medicine cabinets? Boooooorrrriiiiinnnnnggggg. But there comes [...]