January 2013

We hope that this year is off to a good start for all of you. I keep joking that people normally fear Friday the 13th, but this year we have 13 in EVERY date!

We know that many book groups make their selections for the entire year in January, and thus we want to be sure you take a look at the site this month for ideas of what to select!

We're kicking off 2013 in a big way here at ReadingGroupGuides.com, as we have two contests to tell you about. First, we’re giving 50 readers the opportunity to win an advance copy of The Fever Tree by Jennifer McVeigh for their group. (This book will be published on April 4th.) In it, Frances Irvine, left destitute in the wake of her father’s sudden death, has been forced to abandon her life of wealth and privilege in London and emigrate to the Southern Cape of Africa. 1880 South Africa is a country torn apart by greed. In this remote and inhospitable land she becomes entangled with two very different men --- one driven by ambition, the other by his ideals. Only when the rumor of a smallpox epidemic takes her into the dark heart of the diamond mines does she see her path to happiness. I am reading and really enjoying The Fever Tree. It's richly atmospheric, and Frances is a very strong protagonist. To enter, please fill out this form by Monday, February 4th at noon ET.

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan is this month’s featured title in our “What Are You Reading?” contest. In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying Grace Winter and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize has exceeded capacity. For any to live, some must die. As the castaways battle the elements and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she'd found. Will she pay any price to keep it? I read The Lifeboat last year and could just picture the book group discussions about it! I found myself seeking out people who had read it to ask them to talk to me about it. And I had the pleasure of seeing Charlotte interviewed about it at the Hachette Book Group Day in late September. We’re giving away 12 copies of the paperback, which is now in stores, to three groups each. To enter, please fill out this form by Monday, February 4th at noon ET.

We’ve talked a lot in recent months about Home Front by Kristin Hannah and even gave 500 groups the chance to read the book and share their feedback on it. Today Home Front is available in paperback and is one of our featured guides. For those of you not familiar with the story, Michael and Jolene Zarkades must face the pressures of day-to-day life while their 12-year marriage crumbles around them. This isn’t helped when Jolene is deployed into a dangerous war zone. She hates being away from her family, but understands the responsibilities she has toward her country. When tragedy strikes, Michael must face his worst fear and fight for what is important to his family. Click here for the guide.

Our second featured title is Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick, which will be available in paperback on January 15th and was a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection when it released in hardcover last year. Here we meet Charlie Beale, who is recently back from the war in Europe. He shows up in the quiet town of Brownsburg, Virginia. His job at the local butcher shop gives him the opportunity to meet all the townsfolk, including a beautiful teenage bride. Ultimately, Charlie’s obsession with this young woman, Sylvan Glass, threatens to destroy everything and everyone in its path. I loved Goolrick’s A Reliable Wife, which also was a Bets On selection, and there are many parallels between the books with obsessive behaviors, characters you want to throttle, and lots of introspection and darkness. Click here for the guide.

We’re also spotlighting Mistress of My Fate by Hallie Rubenhold, the first book in a trilogy about Henrietta Lightfoot, a young woman who was abandoned as a baby and raised alongside her cousins, noble children of a lord and lady. At just 16 years old, circumstance and a passionate love affair tear Henrietta away from everything she knows, leading to a new life fending for herself on the streets of 18th-century London as a courtesan, gambler, and spirited intellect of the city. Click here for the guide.

Towards the end of last year, we gave 500 book clubs the chance to win a copy of Another Piece of My Heart by Jane Green --- which releases in paperback on February 12th --- for each member of their group, provided that they agree to discuss the book at their February or March meeting; email friends and tell them about the book; and post comments or feedback about the book and/or their discussion on Jane Green’s Facebook page, their personal Facebook pages, Twitter accounts or blogs. The contest ended yesterday, and we will be alerting the lucky winners later this week!

As we ring in 2013, we’re asking you to reflect on your reading from last year. What were the favorite books that your group read in 2012? We know it’s difficult for many of you to pick just one title, so feel free to select up to three. All you have to do is fill out the form on this page by Thursday, January 31st, and we’ll share the results in February. Please spread the word about this special opportunity to the members of your group as we want as many people to weigh in as possible.

While you’re thinking of the titles you’d like to submit, we encourage you to take a look at our annual lists of our 25 New Favorite, 15 Ongoing Favorite and 25 Enduring Favorite book titles for book club discussions in 2012. See if your group agrees with any of our choices, and perhaps consider recommending some of these titles for future book club discussions.

For this month’s poll, we’d like to know if you belong to Goodreads. Last month, we asked if your group does anything special to celebrate the holidays. Almost 72% of you answered yes, while 18% said no. We also gave you the opportunity to let us know exactly how you celebrate, and we compiled some of those responses in a blog post on the ReadingGroupGuides.com Blog. Although the holidays are over, may we suggest that you take a look and see if you might want to coordinate similar celebrations for your group during the 2013 holiday season?

In November, we started an ongoing Facebook Chat about Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, run by Alina Berganovsky on our staff. The book was recently adapted for the stage in Seattle, so we thought this would be the perfect time to revisit this outstanding debut novel. We also posted on our Facebook page Jamie’s replies to questions we asked him about the theatrical production. For those of you who aren’t on Facebook, we’re happy to share highlights of all our coverage on our blog, which you can read here. And we look forward to hearing your comments as well!

My final Bookreporter.com Bets On selection for 2012 was Margaret from Maine by Joseph Monninger, which is now in stores. Margaret Kennedy lives on a dairy farm in rural Maine. Her husband Thomas, injured in a war overseas, will never be the man he was. When the President signs a bill in support of wounded veterans, Margaret is invited to the nation’s capital. Charlie King, a handsome Foreign Service officer, volunteers to escort her. As the rhododendron blossoms along the Blue Ridge Highway, the unlikely pair fall in love --- but Margaret cannot ignore the tug of her marriage vows. When I read it a couple of months ago, the story just struck a chord with me. I think readers who enjoyed Home Front will enjoy it as well.

We’d like to fill you in on the details of World Book Night U.S., a celebration of books and reading held on April 23rd. On this night, 25,000 volunteers across America will be giving away 20 paperback books each from a select list within their communities to those who don’t regularly read. Last year, World Book Night was celebrated in the U.S., the UK, Ireland and Germany, and saw over 80,000 people gift more than 2.5 million books. You can see the complete list of this year’s titles, which were selected by a committee, here.

If you’re interested in becoming a World Book Night U.S. book giver, all you have to do is fill out the online application. Click here for all the details. You will be asked what your first, second and third book choices are, why you wish to share these books, and where you will go to personally hand out the books. The deadline for all applications is Wednesday, January 23rd. My application is in!

Heads up for those of you with teenagers! Let them know about the opportunity to nominate winners for the Children’s Book Council’s Teen Choice Book of the Year. Right now on Teenreads.com, we are asking teens to list their favorite books of 2012. All their responses will be compiled, and the five most popular books will be entered into a second round of voting for a finalist. They have until Thursday, January 31st to vote.

Carol Fitzgerald ([email protected])

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