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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 [...]

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 [...]

The Bonner Springs (KS) City Library has put together a Read, Watch, Discuss series focusing on books and movies with close ties to Kansas in honor of the 150th anniversary of Kansas statehood. The three book/film series includes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Addie Pray by Joe Brown and filmed under [...]

You probably know Nancy Pearl as the role model for the librarian action figure with real shushing action. In reality, she’s a giving person who is more likely to listen to you than shush you. I’ve just finished a leisurely tour through her latest book, Book Lust to Go. It’s the third in her series of Book [...]

The New York Public Library is going to do something historic. Of course. The 42nd Street location will open its doors for an after hours event for 500 lucky participants. A modernized scavenger hunt using smart phones to obtain clues will take bibliophiles all over the library, including the hallowed stacks. You just know that [...]

Here’s a fun theme for an upcoming meeting: Ask each reader in your group to select a book that represents the year of his or her birth. For added fun, bring food or drinks that were typical of the era, memorabilia, a copy of the bestseller list, or a list of events that occurred during [...]

Tuesday, I came nervously to the meeting of my science fiction/fantasy book group. Our monthly theme, fantasy short stories, did not seem like an easy sell. The books that I assembled onto our monthly list (which I create for each theme to give our readers ideas) do not circulate well from the library. But instead [...]

Last week I had a conversation with a colleague about discussing poetry and short stories in groups.  We talked about how these discussions differ from the so-called “regular” book discussion, and afterwards I thought about how little I’ve seen in books and articles about literary discussions that touch on preparing prospective leaders for developing poetry [...]

When book groups make the news it’s for one of two reasons.  Either Oprah is reading or men are. Anytime Oprah opens a cover, publishers salivate. Book groups across the nation are about to make an overnight bestseller. Anytime men gather to talk about reading material that does not require power tools, it’s time to [...]

For those of you, who like me, maintain a free account there, recent upgrades at the Goodreads reading social networking site are worth noting. If you’re not tracking your reading with Goodreads, the new improvements might convince you to give it a try. The Goodreads site, like Library Thing and Shelfari, allows one to create [...]

The Millions has a great preview of books due out in 2011 that describes 76 different forthcoming titles. There’s plenty to look forward to: Alexander Theroux’s biography of Edward Gorey, a writer and illustrator whose twisted Victorian stories helped me develop my taste for the tartness of black humor, is out for the first time [...]

A new update to my 2010 Megalist, the compilation of all the major best-of-the-year lists and award winners into one spreadsheet, will be posted early next week. Compiling this list for the last three years has given me a unique perspective on how the business of selecting the best books works. When you’re reading one [...]

Located on East 47th Street in Manhattan, the Center for Fiction is a nonprofit dedicated to celebrating fiction by supporting authors, readers, and reading groups. If you’re lucky enough to be in New York, you can visit their bookstore, borrow from their library, or sign up for their book groups or special events. For all [...]

I’ve continued to update my 2010 Megalist, my annual compilation of best-of-the-year lists. This week’s additions included some big players, such as the New York Times and The New Yorker. The 2010 Megalist is up to 60 sources, with more to come, and can be downloaded from my other blogging home, Blogging for a Good [...]

At a recent meeting of the Adult Reading Round Table book discussion group, one of the members mentioned that she can only select titles for her seniors book club that are available in regular print, large print, and audiobook formats, and this factor sometimes limits her choices if she is looking for a particular kind [...]

I’ve been browsing through Bernard A. Drew’s Literary Afterlife. It’s essentially a bibliography of works in which one author has used the characters created by another.  It strikes me that it might be fun to devote a book group meeting to reading such pastiches. Don’t get me wrong. For the most part, these are not [...]

I decided to read Lynne Reid Bank’s popular 1960s novel, The L-Shaped Room, after it kept popping up as a book I might like as I searched online. Customer reviews made it sound like a good read. I knew that it was about pre-Pill, pre-abortion England and that in it a young girl becomes pregnant [...]

One of the lions of American literature, particularly southern literature, passed away Thursday at the age of 77. If your book group has not sampled the works of Reynolds Price, then now might be a good time to consider them. Price was a Rhodes Scholar and a long-time professor at Duke University. As a writer, [...]

You don’t have to consult more than one source to get the results of all of the best-books-of-the-year lists in one spreadsheet. For the third consecutive year, I’ve been compiling all of the results, counting up all the votes, from all of the major review sources into one “megalist.” So far, I’ve compiled about 50 [...]

Like many book club leaders, I’m always on the lookout for news of what other groups are doing.  Whenever I visit my mother-in-law in Urbana, Illinois, I make a point to check her local newspaper to learn about the activities of the book clubs in her area.  Recently I discovered that the Champaign Public Library has encouraged [...]