September 2011

The Book Group Spotlight Feature is designed to share a selected book group with our readers. The spotlight may focus on a group's discussion of a book or on a group that we feel is particularly interesting.

Our latest Book Group Spotlight interview is with Tammy Calhoun, a member of the Fabulous Ladies and Books (FLAB) reading group in Cincinnati, Ohio. FLAB, as they affectionately call themselves, is comprised of 10 neighbors who have been meeting to discuss books since 2002. Here, Tammy shares how her group works and offers tips on how to make book group fun!

-Click here to read previous Book Group Spotlight interviews.
 

Is your book group stuck in a rut? Or looking to stretch beyond its comfort zone? Maybe you’re just searching for that next great read?

We’re here to help! Our latest ReadingGroupGuides.com feature, What to Read Next? Suggest a Book for This Group, aims to help a group by taking suggestions from our thousands of book group members.

We’ll regularly feature groups, tell you something about them and share their previous six selections, and then ask you to leave a suggestion for them in our special form. We’re excited to see groups sharing picks back and forth, and hope this feature helps groups find a new favorite discussion title!

-Click here to see this month’s featured groups.
-Click here to see the suggestions for last month’s groups.
-Click here to see the suggestions for previously featured groups.
-Click here to submit your group for consideration.
 

Curious about what titles are going to be big book club news for fall 2011? Check out our special guide created from 10 publishers sharing titles they know book groups are going to love this fall. This list is in PDF form, perfect for printing and sharing with fellow readers as well as taking it to your local store or library.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (Historical Fiction)
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles is a smart escapist novel. It’s beautifully written, with great visual prose that will have you dropped right into 1938. It opens in a jazz bar on New Year’s Eve when Katey Kontent and her friend Eve meet Tinker Grey, a bon vivant banker. The book looks at what happens to these characters over the next year, as Katey drops into a world of wealth and status, including a job at Conde Nast (which the ex-magazine girl in me loved reading about). But what looks so rich and so shiny has an underside that is not what it seems. And Katey, who is quite plucky, navigates her way through this year becoming wiser and wiser.

If you enjoyed The Great Gatsby or The Paris Wife, Rules of Civility has that same kind of rich descriptive writing and “go-go” spirit that makes you feel like you are at the party. Heads up that there are LOTS of cocktails mentioned in the book, especially ones with gin in them. I am not much of a drinker, but found myself craving a gin and tonic as I read! This is the first book in a while that I can see myself wanting to re-read again at a later date. I enjoyed it that much.

-Click here to read more about the book.
-Click here to read an excerpt.
 

While Bookreporter.com’s Coming Soon feature has been on the site for many years, we have received requests from readers asking for weekly email notifications when books are released. Now we’re happy to announce our latest project, Bookreporter.com’s “On Sale This Week” newsletter.

Inside this weekly newsletter you will get a listing of hardcover and paperback titles releasing that week and the next, along with a brief description. It's printer friendly for you to take right to the store or post on a bulletin board in your library or store.
 

Our ReadingGroupGuides.com Blog continues to be a big hit among our readers. Throughout the month we are sharing postings from regular contributors --- including authors, librarians, book club facilitators, booksellers and experts in the publishing industry --- as well as special guests. The latest blog can be found here, and here are quick links to some recent posts:

-Patti Callahan Henry: COMING UP FOR AIR
-Helen Schulman: THIS BEAUTIFUL LIFE
-Emily Chenoweth: HELLO, GOODBYE
-Gail Caldwell: LET'S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME
-Matthew Norman: DOMESTIC VIOLETS
-Joyce Maynard: THE GOOD DAUGHTERS

For those of you who use RSS feeds to keep track of your favorite blogs, you can now add the ReadingGroupGuides.com Blog to your list by clicking this link. Also, receive updates by email here. In addition, the blog is shared on the ReadingGroupGuides.com Facebook page.
 

Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips: Lucy Jorik is the daughter of a former president. Meg Koranda is the offspring of legends. One of them is about to marry Ted Beaudine, the favorite son of Wynette, Texas.
The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg: A critically acclaimed breakout bestseller in Sweden, this haunting novel chronicles the tale of Rumkowski’s monarchical rule over a quarter-million Jews for four-and-a-half years.
Falling for Me: How I Hung Curtains, Learned to Cook, Traveled to Seville, and Fell in Love by Anna David: A career-minded mother of five embarks on a quest to find personal happiness, tackling ordinary household chores and international travel.
The First Love Cookie Club: Twilight, Texas, Book 3 by Lori Wilde: A successful children’s author returns to her small Texas hometown to find she can’t quite shake the memories of friendship and love that greet her there.
Irma Voth by Miriam Toews: That rare coming-of-age story able to blend the dark with the uplifting, Irma Voth follows a young Mennonite woman, vulnerable yet wise beyond her years, who carries a terrible family secret with her on a remarkable journey to survival and redemption.
The Legacy by Katherine Webb: Two sisters return to the English manor that dredges up many memories, including the unsolved mystery of their cousin’s disappearance years ago.
Little Black Dress by Susan McBride: Two sisters whose lives seemed forever intertwined are torn apart when a magical little black dress gives each one a glimpse of an unavoidable future.
Man in the Woods by Scott Spencer: A man, a woman, a child, and an unforgettable dog combine forces in this gripping and surprising psychological thriller, the most stunning novel yet from Scott Spencer --- named one of Publishers Weekly’s Top Ten Books of 2010.
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray: A heartfelt, hilarious portrait of the pain, joy and occasional beauty of adolescence.
That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum: In this rousing call for American renewal, Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum analyze the challenges of globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation’s chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption, and spell out what we need to do now to rediscover America.
Train Dreams: A Novella by Denis Johnson: Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West, this new novella by the National Book Award-winning author of Tree of Smoke captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life.
You Against Me by Jenny Downham: This brave and unflinching novel from the bestselling author of Before I Die tackles loyalty and the choices that come with it.

Please note that these titles, for which we already had the guides when they appeared in hardcover, are now available in paperback:

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham: Set in Manhattan’s contemporary art world, By Nightfall raises bold new questions about these dynamics, through the lens of a seemingly ideal marriage.
C by Tom McCarthy: A young man enlists in World War I only to be captured in Germany and later escaping to London where he accepts a secret mission to Egypt.
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff: The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer brings to life the most intriguing woman in the history of the world: Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt.
Fall of Giants: Book One of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett: The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families --- America, German, Russian, English, and Welsh --- as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage.
The False Friend by Myla Goldberg: From the bestselling author of Bee Season comes an astonishingly complex psychological drama with a simple setup: two 11-year-old girls, best friends and fierce rivals, go into the woods with only one returning.
The Oracle of Stamboul by Michael David Lukas: The Oracle of Stamboul is a marvelously evocative, magical historical novel that will transport readers to another time and place --- romantic, exotic, yet remarkably similar to our own.
A Secret Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay: This stunning new novel from Tatiana de Rosnay, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Sarah’s Key, plumbs the depths of complex family relationships and the power of a past secret to change everything in the present.
Snakewoman of Little Egypt by Robert Hellenga: A woman re-enters society after serving a jail sentence for shooting her abusive husband, a local pastor practicing snake handling religious services.

The following new guide is now available for Christian book groups:

The Protector: Families of Honor, Book Two by Shelley Shepard Gray: A young Amish woman is forced to sell her family’s farm despite a burgeoning romance with its new owner.
The Survivor: Families of Honor, Book Three by Shelley Shepard Gray: After a long bout with cancer, an Amish woman begins developing romantic feelings for her best friend.

 

To be a group to win 20 free copies of this book, all you have to do is sign up for the ReadingGroupGuides.com newsletter by October 1, 2011. If you are receiving this newsletter in your mailbox, you already are signed up!

More about Little Black Dress:
Antonia Ashton has worked hard to build a thriving career and a committed relationship, but she realizes her life has gone off track. Forced to return home to Blue Hills when her mother, Evie, suffers a massive stroke, Toni finds the old Victorian where she grew up as crammed full of secrets as it is with clutter. Now she must put her mother’s house in order --- and uncover long-buried truths about Evie and her aunt, Anna, who vanished 50 years earlier on the eve of her wedding. By shedding light on the past, Toni illuminates her own mistakes and learns the most unexpected things about love, magic, and a little black dress with the power to break hearts...and mend them.