January 2017
ReadingGroupGuides.com Newsletter January 2017 Quick Links to Features on ReadingGroupGuides.com Find a Guide by Title Find a Guide by Author Find a Guide by Genre   Kicking Off 2017; What a Lineup!Happy New Year! A bit of tech housekeeping: The new year brings our newsletter to you in a mobile-friendly format with an ever-so-slightly different design. Onward! On the literary front, I am so excited about the books that we are sharing with you this month; what a way to kick off the new year! To begin, this month's “What’s Your Book Group Reading?" contest title is BOOKS FOR LIVING by New York Times bestselling author Will Schwalbe. We are delighted to share it with you as its theme is at the heart of much of what book groups are about. Will looks at the power of books to shape lives during these times of “constant connectivity.” I am listening to this book on audio, and as I was driving to work yesterday, I found myself fist pumping one line after the next as he talked about the power of reading and the impact of select books on his life.(You may remember Will as the author of THE END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB.) As he says, we ask a lot of questions all day long about mundane things, but one, “What are you reading? It’s a simple question but a powerful one, and it can change lives." I spent time over the holidays with family and friends and talk about books came up again and again. I enjoyed learning what people from different parts of the country were reading. I am so curious about how people discover the books that they read, so that was part of my conversation as well. The books that Will talks about and his point of view on them will get you thinking about books and how they have influenced your life in many ways; reading it and discussing it is a nice way to kick off the year. As usual, we’re giving three groups the chance to win 12 copies; enter here by Wednesday, February 8th at noon ET for your chance to win. Speaking of THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS, we recently heard from Sherry from Mentor, OH, who won 12 copies of Stedman’s bestseller in our September “What’s Your Book Group Reading This Month?” contest. She had this to say about it: “I had my book club the first week of December. There are 12 of us in our book club, (Dozens Beauties is what we call ourselves). ALL twelve of us LOVED the book. It was a great book for a great discussion. Couldn't believe all 12 of us agreed.” We’re happy you enjoyed! And we have FOUR more new contests for you this month. The first is a huge giveaway for Atul Gawande’s runaway bestseller, BEING MORTAL. Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, BEING MORTAL asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end. Those who have read BEING MORTAL have called it a life-changer, and we are so glad that groups will be able to experience this book and discuss it. It's truly brilliant, and those who have read it continuously tell me how powerful it has been for them. We’re giving 35(!) groups the chance to win 10 copies so they can discuss it and share feedback with us. Enter here by Wednesday, February 8th at noon ET for your chance to win. We ask that winners will read, discuss and provide comments on the book by Friday, April 28th, so please enter only if you are able to commit to that deadline with your group! We’re also celebrating the upcoming release (February 7th) of bestselling author Min Jin Lee’s latest, PACHINKO,with a contest that will give 10 groups the chance to win 10 copies. The sweeping story follows one exceptional Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family and identity. Enter here by Wednesday, February 8th at noon ET for your chance to win. This is next up on my reading pile; I had the pleasure of meeting Min a few months ago (she is just lovely), and there has been lots of praise for this book! Those of you who were at the Hachette Book Group event in October are familiar with it, as an advance copy was shared with all attendees. Next up, we’re giving 10 groups the chance to win 10 copies of Laurie Frankel’s timely, thoughtful new book, THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS, which will be in stores on January 24th. The story of how one family adapts to and supports their transgender child, THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales and family. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is, even when things don’t go exactly according to plan. It’s a hot-button topic that we think would make for a very lively book group discussion! Enter here by Wednesday, February 8th at noon ET to win. I read THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS and found it to be so honest about the challenges of raising a transgender child; reading more about Laurie, I learned how her own experience made the writing of this novel so authentic! Award-winning author Juliette Fay’s THE TUMBLING TURNER SISTERS is a rising favorite, now available in paperback. It’s the heartwarming story of the four Turner sisters and their parents, who are barely scraping by in turn-of-the-century New York. When their father’s hand is crushed and he’s forced to quit, their domineering mother decides that the vaudeville stage is their best --- and only --- chance for salvation. Soon, the sisters are immersed in the tumultuous world of American Vaudeville, where swindlers and ne'er-do-wells await in abundance, but so does kindness, and just maybe a chance at love. We’re giving 10 readers the chance to win a copy; enter here by Wednesday, February 8th at noon ET. Juliette is a wonderful writer, and this new direction for her is well done! In this month's poll, we ask where you got the book that you are reading with your group this month. Weigh in here. Our Reading Roundup feature this month spotlights, among others, THE SECOND MRS. HOCKADAY, a stunning debut from Susan Rivers about a young Civil War bride who must navigate a rapidly crumbling social order while her husband is away at war; THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE ON A EARTH, the captivating debut from Lindsey Lee Johnson about an unforgettable cast of characters that is unleashed into a realm known for its cruelty --- the American high school; and the aforementioned HER EVERY FEAR by Peter Swanson, an electrifying psychological thriller involving a young woman caught in a vise of voyeurism, betrayal, manipulation and murder. LIVE Programming Reminder: On Saturday afternoon, March 11th, Simon & Schuster will be hosting book groups and readers for an event with authors at the Ed Sullivan Theater (where "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" is filmed and where the Beatles once performed!). Their author guests are Anthony Doerr, Isabel Allende, Lisa See, Lisa Genova, Ruth Ware and Megan Miranda. We have received word that tickets for this "Book Club Matinee" will go on sale on Tuesday, January 17th, so make a note on your calendars for this. As soon as we have the link to buy tickets, we will post it on our website. I will be there, and am hoping to see many of you! Much more to come about this! Here's to a great book group discussion this month! P.S. For any of you buying books for your discussion this month, please consider using the links below as we receive a referral fee, which helps to fund this site!    Special Contest: Win 10 Copies of BEING MORTAL by Atul Gawande for Your Group and Share Comments From Your Group We are celebrating the #1 New York Times bestselling BEING MORTAL --- doctor Atul Gawande's meditation on death, modern medicine and what matters most in the end --- with a special contest that will give 35 groups the chance to win 10 copies. To enter, please fill out this form by Wednesday, February 8th at noon ET. We ask that winners will read, discuss and provide feedback on the book by Friday, April 28th, so please enter only if you are able to commit to that deadline with your group! BEING MORTAL by Atul Gawande (Medicine) Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering. Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified. Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, BEING MORTAL asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end. -Click here for the reading group guide.  Special Contest: Win 10 Copies of PACHINKO by Min Jin Lee for Your Group We are celebrating the February 7th release of bestselling author Min Jin Lee's PACHINKO --- a sweeping saga that follows one Korean family in exile from its homeland through generations of desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs --- with a special contest that will give 10 groups the chance to win 10 copies. To enter, please fill out this form by Wednesday, February 8th at noon ET. PACHINKO by Min Jin Lee (Historical Fiction) PACHINKO follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family and identity. -Click here for the reading group guide.  Special Contest: Win 10 Copies of THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS by Laurie Frankel for Your Group We are celebrating the January 24th release of Laurie Frankel's THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS --- a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales and family --- with a special contest that will give 10 groups the chance to win 10 copies. To enter, please fill out this form by Wednesday, February 8th at noon ET. This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated. When Rosie and Penn and their four boys welcome the newest member of their family, no one is surprised it’s another baby boy. At least their large, loving, chaotic family knows what to expect. -Click here for the reading group guide.  Special Contest: Win a Copy of THE TUMBLING TURNER SISTERS by Juliette Fay We are celebrating the paperback release of award-winning author Juliette Fay's THE TUMBLING TURNER SISTERS --- a heartwarming historical novel, set amidst the backdrop of 1920s American Vaudeville, about the four Turner sisters and the "last chance act" that will save their family --- with a special contest that will give 10 readers the chance to win a copy of the book. To enter, please fill out this form by Wednesday, February 8th at noon ET. THE TUMBLING TURNER SISTERS by Juliette Fay (Historical Fiction) -Click here for the reading group guide.   Share Your Favorite Book Group Titles of 2016 --- and Enter to Win SIX 2017 Advance Reading Copies This is the time of year when everyone is posting “Best Books of the Year” lists. We would like you and your book group to help us compile ours! Click here to share both your favorite book that you read with your group this year and your favorite book that you read outside your group by Tuesday, January 31st at noon ET, and you will be eligible to win SIX fantastic titles:
Please note: Your favorite book you discussed with your group CAN be the same as your favorite book of the year! And they don't have to have been published in 2016. And please be careful with the spelling of book titles and authors’ first and last names to save us editing time. We will have our reader-compiled Best Of list to share with you in early February. We cannot wait to see what you select! Click here to share your favorite book group titles of 2016. "What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?": Enter to Win 12 Copies of BOOKS FOR LIVING by Will Schwalbe for Your Group Each month, we ask book groups to share the titles they are reading that month and rate them. From all entries, three winners will be selected, and each will win 12 copies of that month’s prize book for their group. Note: To be eligible to win, let us know the title of the book that YOUR book group is CURRENTLY reading, NOT the title we are giving away. "What are you reading?" It's a simple question but a powerful one, and it can change lives. For Will Schwalbe, reading is a way to entertain himself but also to make sense of the world, to become a better person, and to find the answers to the big (and small) questions about how to live life. In this delightful celebration of reading, Schwalbe invites us along on his quest for books that speak to the specific challenges of living in our modern world, with all its noise and distractions.  Featured Guide: A CERTAIN AGE by Beatriz Williams A CERTAIN AGE by Beatriz Williams (Historical Fiction) As the freedom of the Jazz Age transforms New York City, the iridescent Mrs. Theresa Marshall of Fifth Avenue and Southampton, Long Island, has done the unthinkable: she’s fallen in love with her young paramour, Captain Octavian Rofrano, a handsome aviator and hero of the Great War. An intense and deeply honorable man, Octavian is devoted to the beautiful socialite of a certain age and wants to marry her. While times are changing and she does adore the Boy, divorce for a woman of Theresa’s wealth and social standing is out of the question, and there is no need; she has an understanding with Sylvo, her generous and well-respected philanderer husband. But their relationship subtly shifts when her bachelor brother, Ox, decides to tie the knot with the sweet younger daughter of a newly wealthy inventor. Engaging a longstanding family tradition, Theresa enlists the Boy to act as her brother’s cavalier, presenting the family’s diamond rose ring to Ox’s intended, Miss Sophie Fortescue --- and to check into the background of the little-known Fortescue family. When Octavian meets Sophie, he falls under the spell of the pretty ingénue, even as he uncovers a shocking family secret. As the love triangle of Theresa, Octavian and Sophie progresses, it transforms into a saga of divided loyalties, dangerous revelations and surprising twists that will lead to a shocking transgression...and eventually force Theresa to make a bittersweet choice. Full of the glamour, wit and delicious twists that are the hallmarks of Beatriz Williams’ fiction and alternating between Sophie’s spirited voice and Theresa’s vibrant timbre, A CERTAIN AGE is a beguiling reinterpretation of Richard Strauss’ comic opera Der Rosenkavalier, set against the sweeping decadence of Gatsby’s New York.   Special Contest: Enter to Win Our End-of-the-Year Celebration Featuring All 40 "Bets On" Titles from 2016 We are thrilled to announce a very special contest featuring Carol Fitzgerald’s Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2016. One Grand Prize winner will be awarded all 40 books, while eight other winners will receive a selection of five of these titles. To enter, please fill out this form by Monday, January 9th at noon ET.
  Enter Our Ongoing Bookreporter.com Contests: Word of Mouth Contest: Tell Us What You're Reading --- and You Can Win Two Books!    January's Reading Roundup: Top Picks from Indie Next, LibraryReads, Target and CostcoEach month, we share top book picks from Indie Next and LibraryReads, as well as the Target Book Club title and Pennie's Pick for Costco. Indie Next titles include BOOKS FOR LIVING, New York Times bestselling author Will Schwalbe's inspiring exploration of the power of books to shape our lives in an era of constant connectivity; bestselling author Chris Bohjalian's THE SLEEPWALKER, a spine-tingling novel of lies, loss and buried desire that begins when a wife and mother vanishes from her bed late one night; and THE SECOND MRS. HOCKADAY, a stunning debut from Susan Rivers about a young Civil War bride who must navigate a rapidly crumbling social order while her husband is away at war.     January's New in Paperback RoundupsJanuary’s roundup of New in Paperback fiction titles includes Michel Bussi’s AFTER THE CRASH, a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick that follows the aftermath of a plane crash in which the sole survivor is a three-month-old girl --- and two families step forward to claim the child; THE CURIOUS CHARMS OF ARTHUR PEPPER by Phaedra Patrick, a hauntingly beautiful story of love, loneliness and self-discovery that introduces readers to an endearing widower who embarks on a life-changing adventure; and Viola Shipman's THE CHARM BRACELET, in which three women, through an heirloom charm bracelet, rediscover the importance of family and a passion for living as each charm changes their lives. Among this month’s nonfiction offerings are THE RAINBOW COMES AND GOES, a touching and intimate correspondence between Anderson Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, that offers timeless wisdom and a revealing glimpse into their lives; RISE OF THE ROCKET GIRLS by Nathalia Holt, the riveting true story of the women who launched America into space; and Alison Weir's THE LOST TUDOR PRINCESS, the first biography of Margaret Douglas, the beautiful, cunning niece of Henry VIII of England who used her sharp intelligence and covert power to influence the succession after the death of Elizabeth I. -Find out what's New in Paperback for the weeks of January 2nd, January 9th, January 16th, January 23rd and January 30th.     New Guides Now Available The following guides are now available on ReadingGroupGuides.com: BOOKS FOR LIVING by Will Schwalbe (Memoir/Literature) MARLENE by C. W. Gortner (Historical Fiction) THE PRIZE by Jill Bialosky (Fiction) THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS by Laurie Frankel (Fiction) TRANSIT by Rachel Cusk (Fiction) This Month's PollWhere did you get the book that you are reading with your book group this month? Amazon Click here to answer the poll by Wednesday, February 8th at noon ET.  Don't forget to forward this newsletter to a friend or to visit the websites in TheBookReportNetwork.com: |
