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Wanted to share my latest biblio-web find, The Book Smugglers. This pair of self-professed OCD “book junkies” review science fiction and young adult titles (essentially whatever they like). They post four book reviews a week and trade out reviews of movies, music, television, other cross over items. Once a month they two blog runners will [...]

Perhaps you have heard of the Mother Daughter Book Club series, and were inspired to start an MD group of your own.  Firstly:  splendid!  Secondly:  I suggest Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (after you read Anne of Green Gables, Pride and Prejudice and Little Women, of course). Tuck into this desert island tale of adventure, [...]

I’ll share two posts this week about the books that the librarians at Williamsburg Regional Library selected for a staff book group themed around the best books of 2012. Then I’ll be back early next week with the first installment of my annual All-the-Best-Books Compilation (ABBC), my annual spreadsheet that tabulates the votes from dozens [...]

Last year I wrote about Hooks and Books, a Teen Book and Fiber Arts Club at The Kansas City Public Library. Teens gather to discuss young adult literature and graphic novels and also learn how to crochet. Why should teens have all the fun? The creative and energetic Youth Services staff at the Central Library [...]

Carol Rifka Brunt’s stunning 2012 debut coming-of-age, Tell the Wolves I’m Home, begins, as most memorable novels do, with a great first line: My sister, Greta, and I were having our portrait painted by our uncle Finn that afternoon because he knew he was dying. The painting at the heart of this novel becomes an [...]

Isn’t it time your book club planned a restorative get-a-way?  As you know, that wine won’t drink itself.  If you live in Western Washington I have got just the cozy and scenic spot for you, complete with a bibliophile who is eager to make your acquaintance. Historically I am not a fan of the Washington [...]

Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.  —C.S. Lewis People give us stuff mind you.  People can be very generous to witches.  On bakin’ days in our village sometimes I can’t move for cake. —Spoken by well-fed veteran witch, Mrs. Ogg   Picture this:  a book group.  Be patient now, it [...]

We’re starting a new book group for teens at The Kansas City Public Library. It’s called Hooks and Books; it’s a teen book and fiber arts club. Teens gather monthly to chat over young adult books and graphic novels from a monthly list and learn how to crochet Japanese amigurumi. The facilitator offers a weekly [...]

I had a great time last week visiting Twinsburg, Ohio to give a talk called “Fairy Tales for the Readers’ Advisor.” The topic was chosen because fairy tales seem to have a new following, perked up by a number of new film adaptations for adult audiences and television shows like Once upon a Time and [...]

I don’t know about you, but once in a while I just have to read some young adult fiction. I am well-versed in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and I spent an entire Christmas Eve swallowed up by The Hunger Games while my children had to make their own cookies. But it isn’t often [...]

Late last week, I met with 15 young men and an administrator who is working to make a difference. Dr. Jeffrey Carroll designed his own book group for guys starting with a great carrot. Those who finish the book and attend the meetings get to take a field trip to a Norfolk Admirals hockey practice, [...]

As they did previously with science fiction and fantasy, the folks at NPR have conducted a grand search for the best books for teens. The field was narrowed to 235 choices by a panel of experts, and then the public voted to narrow that selection to a ranked top 100. The final voting predictably skews [...]

Here are more of the books from a recent meeting of Williamsburg Regional Library’s staff book group, books that suggest that appropriate “summer” reading varies greatly depending on the perspective reader. Melissa from Adult Services brought The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, a young adult fantasy that she liked as much as I did. She [...]

One of my favorite book groups to facilitate is the KCPL/Kansas City Star FYI Book Group. One of this group’s greatest strengths is that no one has ever met before. In fact, that’s almost a requirement for joining. The KCPL/KCStar FYI Book Group comes together every six to eight weeks at different times, days, and [...]

Last week I had the pleasure of talking about summer reading on a local news program live. I had the opportunity to talk about some great books for summer for children, teens and adults. Here is a link to the interview. Here is a list of the books I talked about: Gingerbread Man Loose in [...]

There is a theory that if the Big Bang sent all of the cosmos hurtling outward after some kind of massive eruption, it will all eventually fall back into itself in something called the Big Crunch. The idea is explored by author Pete Hautman in his young adult novel, The Big Crunch.  In this novel, [...]

“People are freer in America.  But there are more tears.” The sentence above, a quote by Mama Geless, a Danish immigrant in the book City of Orphans. does a nice job of summarizing the theme of this story.  Unintentionally, I have been reading books with similar themes lately including Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [...]

Last week I had the pleasure of attending my colleague Jared’s new science fiction and fantasy book group, Other Realms. While it was at the library it was still particularly enjoyable to be there as a participant rather than as a facilitator. The group met to discuss Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels, a teen fantasy that [...]

Brian Selznick’s illustrated novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret was released to great acclaim in 2007, winning the Caldecott Medal and deservedly so. It’s a big, beautiful book with lots of atmospheric black and white pencil drawings, published lovingly on nice paper and with real sewn bindings. Although it’s large, it reads quite quickly. The [...]

The end of compilation is in sight as I continue to combine all of 2011′s best-books-of-the-year lists and awards into one spreadsheet that shows every book that was mentioned by every major source and documents how many times each of those works has been mentioned. Here at Book Group Buzz, I’ve been analyzing some of [...]