January 2005

Happy New Year!

Thanks to all of you who shared the special holiday celebrations that your groups enjoyed with us. Appreciation also to those of you who wrote with your thoughts about the movie based on THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN. One of my favorite comments was from Geneva Oladele, who shared this about her group. "In November we started reading THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN. Then in December we came together to celebrate Eddie's birthday as well as Christmas. The November host had made a cake in memory of Eddie with a Ferris wheel on it to represent his carnival life. We watched the movie and discussed it." I enjoy hearing ideas like this.

We are bringing you FOUR great contests for book clubs this month. What a way to celebrate that last month we had 138,000 unique visitors --- our best numbers to date!

This month we are bringing you a guide for a book that many of your have been asking for --- ANGELS AND DEMONS. Also, see the guide for CAGE'S BEND, a book that we just profiled as ONE TO WATCH on Bookreporter.com. We also bring you a guide for a coming of age novel that we are excited about that is just out in paperback, THE SHADOW OF THE WIND.

Later this month we will be giving our Registered Book Groups the opportunity to win free books! Plans still are being finalized for the titles that will be part of this promotion. Book Clubs who are registered by Friday, January 14th will be eligible for these offers via an exclusive Registered Book Club mailing. If your group still is not registered with us, click here to register.

Don't forget that my column in the January/February issue of Pages magazine has my Bookish Resolutions for 2005. Make a note to pick up a copy and check them out. It's the cover with the husband/wife writers Pat Conroy and Cassandra King on the cover. I am reading THE SAME SWEET GIRLS by King now and I thoroughly am enjoying it. I do not have girlfriends from high school or college who I regularly pal around with like these characters, but I enjoy reading books that portray this kind of camaraderie.

Tip for January:
Make a reading resolution. Vow to keep this one longer than the other resolutions that you have made --- and probably already broken.

See our BEST OF Lists featuring our current lists of New Favorites and Ongoing Favorites here. Please note over the next week or so we will be adding additional guides to the site. We got a tad behind with the holidays. Be sure to check back!

Have a great month!

Carol Fitzgerald ([email protected])

THE SAME SWEET GIRLS, the new novel by the celebrated author of THE SUNDAY WIFE, chronicles the joyous and heartbreaking ups and downs in the lives of a tight-knit and spirited group of Southern women who met in college and have been fast friends ever since.

Enter the Contest to Win 20 Copies of THE SAME SWEET GIRLS for Your Group:
Read an excerpt of Cassandra King's latest novel, THE SAME SWEET GIRLS, and submit your feedback about it along with your name and your mailing address to [email protected].

Special Feature and Contest: Win Copies of DANCING NAKED AT THE EDGE OF DAWN and THE ELEGANT GATHERING OF WHITE SNOW by Kris Radish and T-Shirts for Your Group

DANCING NAKED AT THE EDGE OF DAWN by Kris Radish
Meg Fratano has just witnessed the unthinkable: her husband of twenty-seven years making love to another woman. In her bed. And all Meg wanted to do was watch. Quietly, secretly, watch. Then she realized her life would never be the same.

Meg isn't sure what she wants, but she knows it's not what she had. After almost three decades of marriage and two children, she has finally awakened to how unhappy she is.

THE ELEGANT GATHERING OF WHITE SNOWS by Kris Radish
A tribute to the spirit of friendship that sustains us all, The Elegant Gathering of White Snows takes readers on an exhilarating odyssey through the lives of eight extraordinary women. Gathering each Thursday night for unbridled fellowship, this group has shared joys and heartaches, hopes and disappointments. But one night they respond to a personal crisis by deciding to go for a walk-with no particular destination in mind. They don't ask permission from family and friends. They don't leave instructions on operating the dishwasher. They don't pack suitcases. They just leave, unburdening themselves of sorrow and anger with every step they take.

Win 10 Copies of Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn or The Elegant Gathering of White Snowsand 10 T-SHIRTS for Your Group
Submit your feedback about it along with your name and your mailing address to [email protected].

MANSFIELD PARK, Featured in THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB

Ever thought about making your book club a Jane Austen Book Club? Given the success of the bestseller THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB, by Karen Joy Fowler, we're sharing with book clubs what they need to make this happen. Beginning last November thru this April, we will publish a discussion guide that Fowler has written expressly for book clubs for one of the six Jane Austen titles mentioned in the book. Our second selection this month is MANSFIELD PARK.

To make this Austen celebration even more fun, we are selecting 5 groups to each win 12 copies of MANSFIELD PARK for their discussion. Interested? Send us your name and mailing address by writing [email protected] by January 31, 2005 to be eligible to win. See complete list of rules at the link below.

In case you missed past month's selections:
Emma
Sense and Sensibility

Read more about how to make your club a JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB here, as well as details on how to enter the contest.

THE BIRTH OF VENUS by Sarah Dunant - Chat With the Author

THE BIRTH OF VENUS is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain's most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city. 

See the guide for THE BIRTH OF VENUS.

Enter your book club to win a chat with Sarah Dunant and discuss THE BIRTH OF VENUS.
  

THE RED QUEEN by Margaret Drabble

In a way, THE RED QUEEN is two novels -- two simmering storylines set centuries apart yet entwined through one legacy. Showcasing her renowned imaginative powers, Margaret Drabble now plumbs a collage of worlds, from the private rooms of a Korean crown princess to a fateful conference in Seoul that unlocks a scholar's heart and mind. A novel of abundant wit and arresting turns, THE RED QUEEN brims with intriguing facets.

This month we bring you the following book club interviews:

Gus Alfieri of "Sports Pages Roundtable" from
Smithtown, NY

"The Bethlehem Women's Book Group" from Bethlehem

Has your group ever had an author join your meeting for a phone chat?
Yes
No

Would your group want to have an author of their choosing do a phone chat with them during a book club meeting?
Yes
No
Not sure

If so, given the way your group selects books, how far in advance would you need to plan this?
The same month
The next month
2-3 months in advance
4-6 months in advance
More than six months in advance

What are some reasons that you may not want to do this? Check as many as apply.
Getting everyone to agree on an author to speak with would be hard.
The logistics of getting this to work are too daunting.
Our group is intimidated at the idea of talking to an author.
We'd prefer an online chat or message board discussion. 
We have done this or would like to try it.
 
Any other comments about this?
Yes (leave room for them to answer)
No

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh
Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn by Kris Radish
Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
The Same Sweet Girls by Cassandra King
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson