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

I recently read a book that has been lingering in my mind for weeks. The themes that Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden explore somehow resonated with me. Madden’s novel is about the long-term friendships and family relationships, the ways in which we do and do not communicate with one another and all of the [...]

I can’t stop thinking about Olive Kitteridge. Olive, the book written by Elizabeth Strout (for which she was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction), and Olive, the woman — a large-boned, blunt-talking retired schoolteacher living in a small Maine town — who dominates the pages of Strout’s engrossing novel.  Olive Kitteridge is the book [...]

With his simple, elegant style, a generous dusting of artful platitudes, and deep exploration of human nature, Leif Enger is a bit of a throwback. His writing evokes two of my favorite authors–John Steinbeck and Wallace Stegner–as well as other novelists from even earlier times. His first book, Peace like a River, was an unusual tale of American adventure that looked closely [...]

I just finished the book that is bound to be one of the buzziest books this fall–Chad Harbach’s debut, The Art of Fielding. It’s a book with larger than life characters written with such warmth and compassion that you come away imbued with a sense of wonder. I finished the book so satisfied–with the characters, [...]

A Toby Ball that is. Ball is a writer, activist (working for nonprofits such as The Carbon Coalition and the Crimes Against Children Research Center. Born in DC, raised in Syracuse, NY, he now lives in Durham, New Hampshire. Ball is the author of two excellent period thrillers. Scorch City was just released at the [...]

The God of Carnage (2006) is a remarkable play by the French playwright Yasmina Reza. After winning many awards in its original French, the English translation by Christopher Hampton won both Britain’s Olivier Award and Broadway’s Tony Award for Best Play. Stars including Ralph Fiennes, Janet McTeer, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, [...]

If your book group is looking for something new strong on character and language with weighty themes and complex family dynamics, try Martha Southgate’s The Taste of Salt. Narrated at times from the various perspectives of the Henderson family, the book primarily focuses on Josie Henderson, a black marine biologist working at the Woods Hole [...]

I stand corrected about groups tackling larger books and even series. There are groups out there taking on series, even of the doorstop variety. For fantasy readers and book groups I wanted to share my recent discovery. Tor.com has two current threads in which both George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones books are being [...]

The last 15 minutes of every Adult Reading Round Table Steering Committee meeting are reserved for reading recommendations offered by the committee members to each other.  It’s a great way to learn what your colleagues are reading and what their reactions are to these books – and at the same time, pick up some ideas about [...]

Can science work as a nonfiction subject for book groups? With the right book choices, the answer is a resounding yes, but it helps if you can find science writers who also capture the human side of science. When the scientists are discussed alongside their work, the results are often full of drama, suspense, and [...]

I have been having my own Ray Bradbury reading streak of late and was pleased to discover that there has been something of a Bradbury revival out there. For one, Ray Bradbury just turned 91 and writer Alice Hoffman wrote a very nice piece for the LA Times about Bradbury to mark the auspicious birthday [...]

Hopefully, you’re kicking back today and didn’t have to go into work. Since book groups tend to like memoirs, why not glance through some of these occupational memoirs and see what might suit? Explore the underbelly of so-called glamour professions and at the very least, learn to love your own job again. Blood, Bones & [...]

I finally found time for Aravind Adiga’s 2008 Booker-Prize-winning first novel, The White Tiger, and it’s easy to see why the book received so much praise. Books with unreliable narrators make for fascinating group discussions, and Balram Halwai, the titular White Tiger, is one of the most cagy cats you’ll ever encounter. Born into poverty [...]

It’s the time of year when I start gathering titles for my book groups to help them select next year’s reading. I am ever so grateful to Time Magazine for making the nonfiction choices a little easier. Recently Time published the All-Time 100 Best Nonfiction Books. I’m sure many of you will find titles that [...]

Along with all the great new fall fiction, book group facilitators can look forward to fascinating nonfiction that will please devotees of “the real story.” Steve Paul, senior writer and arts editor at the Kansas City Star, added his two cents to the crop of autumn reads with a round-up of the most intriguing nonfiction. [...]

With Labor Day right around the corner, I’m feeling a little wistful that summer will soon be over. But with Labor Day right around the corner, I’m also feeling artistic, musical, and literary anticipation. Because the Fall Arts calendar will soon be in full swing. New theatre, new exhibits, new opera and symphonies, and the [...]

I was wandering around the stacks in my library when I found a book that I had read years ago and liked very much, Charity Girl by Michael Lowenthal. It is historical fiction and would be a good choice for book groups interested in little known pieces of American history. Charity Girl is a heartbreaking, [...]

In Kathleen Tessaro’s fourth novel, The Debutante, artist Cate leaves New York after a disastrous affair to work in her aunt Rachel’s London auction house.  When she is paired with handsome Jack (on the run from his own demons),  sparks fly but their baggage doesn’t seem to be a matched set.  As they work together [...]

Wendy McClure’s memoir of her love and search for the reality behind the fiction of an American classic of childhood is a great idea for a one-time theme for a book group. McClure chronicled her Little House quest in The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of ‘Little House on the Prairie‘. Readers [...]

My science fiction and fantasy group met on Tuesday to discuss the theme of aliens, and it seemed that half of us had picked out books by John Scalzi. If you haven’t tried Scalzi, he’s a writer with a great throwback style, full of action, adventure and humor, reminiscent of Robert Heinlein and some other [...]