Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

My book group came late to Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland’s luminous novel about a Vermeer painting and its various owners from the time of its creation to the present day. It was a giant bestseller when it was originally published back in 1999,  but we don’t usually discuss books when they first appear, instead waiting [...]

After months of compiling, I’m ready to call the aggregated Megalist of the best books of 2009 complete. It takes time for many important sources to weigh in, and sometimes these later sources provide a better perspective than the December lists, so I don’t finish the compilation until mid-March. For book groups, which often prefer [...]

I just posted March themes a couple of days ago, but themes are more useful for book groups if you have a chance to plan ahead, so let’s launch right into April, with a list of themes your group might try next month.
1. APRIL FOOLS DAY
You can find fools in fiction in works like Fool [...]

Here are ten great themes for a March book group meeting:
1. ST. PATRICK’S DAY
Celebrate St. Patty’s with green food and your choice of books set in Ireland or written by Irish authors.
2. READ A PLAY
March is the birthday month for Henrik Ibsen, Edward Albee, and Tennessee Williams, and plays make great book group choices. Read a work of [...]

When I asked my book group what they “loved” about Loving Frank, Nancy Horan’s enthralling novel about the love affair between famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the wife of one of his Oak Park clients, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, not everyone expressed positive feelings for the book.  Many group members did say that even though the relationship [...]

The Academy Awards are coming this weekend. If your group is interested in movies or cultural history, I can’t think of a finer title than Mark Harris’s Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood. In 1967, the films released and ultimately nominated for best picture reflected not only sea changes [...]

Yesterday The Chicago Public Library announced the latest selection in its One Book, One Chicago program: Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin. In the report I saw on the local news, the official who announced the selection seemed almost defensive, explaining that Brooklyn was chosen in part because it’s about Irish immigrants; Chicago, of course, is a big [...]

On a bitter cold Saturday in January, the KCPL/Kansas City Star FYI book group gathered to discuss City of Thieves by David Benioff. All remarked how the weather was in keeping with the book’s setting, the bleak Russian landscape in the winter of 1941-42.

Lev and Kolya are given an impossible task by a general. Find [...]

Participants from five divisions at Williamsburg Regional Library gathered for a meeting about books with musical themes. The thematic format is a great way for us to identify books that our patrons might enjoy, and this theme was a goldmine. We discovered several excellent titles that everyone-reads-the-same-book groups would never consider.
Cela led off with The [...]

Do you have the urge to gossip? If you could have the power of mental telepathy, would you take it? What if you heard not just select voices at select times, but everybody’s thoughts, all the time? And what if everyone else could hear your thoughts, too?  As superpowers go, this sounds pretty miserable, but [...]

Ten libraries in the western suburbs of Chicago are currently sponsoring a “Big Read” program focusing on Kathryn Stockett’s deeply involving bestseller about life in the South in 1962, The Help.  They are urging community members to read and discuss the book together with family and friends by checking out “Book Club in a Bag” kits.  [...]

Books adapted into films are always a great choice for book groups, but three recent films are good reminders of how difficult it is to adapt great books to another media form. As I watched Shutter Island, The Lovely Bones, and The Blind Side, I couldn’t help but think that I would be enjoying myself more if [...]

I continue to tally votes from as many authoritative sources as I can find to build my spreadsheet of the Best Books of 2009. So far, I’ve counted votes for 1,880 books published in the U.S. during 2009, as named by 112 sources. There are still a few important sources to add to the list, but I’m [...]

A “One Book” program is an excellent way to get people reading and talking about books. Here’s a rundown of some 2010 “one book” programs.
One Book, One Philadelphia: The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.
One Book South Dakota: What Is the What by Dave Eggers.
One Book One Marin: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.
One Book [...]

Here are ten themes that would serve your book group well for spirited discussion at a February meeting:
1. VALENTINE’S DAY
Have your readers bring their favorite love stories to the group. This doesn’t need to be confined to conventional romances or even to fiction.
2. LOVE STINKS
For a little counterprogramming fun, bring books about love gone wrong, [...]

It’s my ongoing quest to get book groups to give more attention to speculative fiction: fantasy, science fiction and horror. These genres are not just guilty pleasures or greasy kid stuff. Yes, there are plenty of escapist works in the speculative genres, but there are also books filled with the interesting characters, issues, and conflicts [...]

Young adult novels are underutilized by book groups and that’s a shame. They aren’t just for kids and they have several characteristics that make them outstanding book group choices: they tend to be quick reading, they’re loaded with issues, and they feature strong emotions and relationships in transition. As an added bonus, many book group members love [...]

A reader of this blog queried some time back about the additional resources that were shared at a discussion of Mary Doria Russell’s Dreamers of the Day, which I had talked about in one of my posts.  I had mentioned how book discussions can be enhanced when the leader brings additional resources to the meeting, [...]

At my most recent book discussion, I tried something new.  At the start of the meeting, I asked everyone to take a minute and think about the book (which was Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman) and prepare to share a brief comment beginning with “What I liked about the book was…” or “What I didn’t [...]

Zoinks! I might be just a little bit crazy (but in a good way).
I’ve been toiling since late November to build my annual aggregated compilation of last year’s best books. It’s not just the best according to one source, or even according to ten sources. So far, it’s the best according to 74 different authoritative sources, [...]