March 2013

March is always a tough month for me. I am ready for winter to be OVER and am tired of gray days. Layer in the one-hour time change to Daylights Savings Time that is planned for this weekend, and BAM, it all gets even bleaker. But I have been reading a number of FABULOUS books, and they are brightening my days enormously taking me to other places. I am sure that you as readers know what I mean. And may the collective energy of your discussing books with your book groups brighten your days as well.

We start this month with Until I Say Good-bye: My Year of Living with Joy by Susan Spencer-Wendel and Bret Witter, which is this month’s featured title in our "What Are You Reading" contest. We’re giving away 12 copies of the book, which releases on March 12th, to three groups.

I had read about this book a few months ago and read some of the columns that inspired it in the Palm Beach Post. Susan has ALS and knows her fate. She also is a journalist and a very take-charge person. So instead of crying “woe is me,” she has gone on to live life joyfully, all the while the disease is zapping her muscle control. She's traveled with family and friends, planned memories for her children, and focused on doing rather than weeping.

This book is powerfully moving in the same way that The Last Lecture and Tuesdays with Morrie were. However, it resonated with me even more. Maybe because I am a mom and a wife --- like Susan. She is fashion-conscious (okay, fashion-crazy) like me. And the details of how she still plans her appearance even as her health is declining show the depths to which one will go to maintain normalcy in a world spinning out of control. When you read, think of this. While Susan was writing this book, she had lost control of her hands. It was typed on an iPhone with the one finger she still could control. Seriously. She had people read it back as she could see so little on the iPhone screen. I could go on and on about why I love this book and why it inspired me.

To enter to win 12 copies of Until I Say Good-bye for your group, all you have to do is fill out this form by Tuesday, April 2nd at noon ET and tell us what your group is reading. How easy is that?

Among our new featured guides this month is Come Home by Lisa Scottoline. Jill Farrow is a typical suburban mom who has finally gotten her and her daughter's lives back on track after a divorce. But Jill’s life is turned upside down when her ex-stepdaughter, Abby, shows up on her doorstep late one night and delivers shocking news: Jill’s ex-husband is dead. Abby insists that he was murdered and pleads with Jill to help find his killer. Jill reluctantly agrees to make a few inquiries and discovers that things don’t add up. As she digs deeper, her actions threaten to rip apart her new family, destroy their hard-earned happiness, and even endanger her own life. Click here for the guide and here for our Bookreporter.com review. Lisa is a wonderful storyteller. She crafts her work and is passionate about her readers. And it shows.

We’re pleased to share that St. Martin’s Griffin, which publishes the paperback edition of Come Home, is giving away 100 copies of the book. Enter by Saturday, March 30th at 11:59pm ET for your chance to win. Click here for all the details.

We have a guide on the site this month for The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood. Many may know her for her previous works, The Knitting Circle and The Red Thread. In her latest, we are introduced to Claire, who, on the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a loveless marriage or follow the man she loves and whose baby she may be carrying. Decades earlier, obituary writer Vivien Lowe is searching for her lover who disappeared in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. The surprising connection between Claire and Vivien will change the life of one of them in unexpected and extraordinary ways.

I am just about finished with it; I stopped to finish this newsletter, and it will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection when I share my thoughts about it on Bookreporter.com later this week. I had the pleasure of meeting Ann in Kansas City a couple of weeks ago…and I am sorry we did not talk about knitting! She is clear that knitting and knitting circles were very therapeutic to her when she lost her five-year-old daughter suddenly back in 2002, and The Knitting Circle is based on what she learned from those women who gathered together and nurtured each other through various aspects of their lives.

Five of our guides are ones that we already featured when the books released in hardcover and now are available in paperback (or will be soon).

First up, we have the guide for A Good American, which was a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick when it published in hardcover last February and now is available in paperback. Alex George’s debut tells the story of the Meisenheimer family from the perspective of James, a third-generation American living in Beatrice, Missouri. It’s where his German grandparents --- Frederick and Jette --- found themselves after journeying across the turbulent Atlantic, fording the flood-swollen Mississippi, and being brought to a sudden halt by the broken water of the pregnant Jette. A Good American tells of Jette’s dogged determination to feed a town sauerkraut and soul food; the loves and losses of her children, Joseph and Rosa; and the precocious voices of James and his brothers, sometimes raised in discord, other times in perfect harmony. Click here for the guide. Click here for our Bookreporter.com review and here for my Bets On comments.

I got to meet Alex recently in Kansas City at the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute, and you can see us pictured above. A Good American was the “One Institute Read,” meaning that all the booksellers were sent a copy to read before this discussion --- a book group for booksellers. In a room filled with eager bookstore owners and their staffs, Alex shared the journey that he took to write this book. A lawyer by day, he spent a lot of early mornings writing --- and rewriting. The book was originally rejected by his editor, Amy Einhorn, who later published it after he re-wrote the last third to make it hum. Alex, who is British, moved to Missouri in 2003. One thing that he has noted here is how differences in race through the years have divided this country, which is something he captures in his book. As we are a country of immigrants, many readers have told him that he has reminded them of their own family stories. It’s a GREAT book group title.

Second is Spring Fever by Mary Kay Andrews. Annajane Hudgens truly believes she is over her ex-husband, Mason Bayless, and so has absolutely no problem attending his wedding to the beautiful, intelligent and delightful Celia. But when fate intervenes and the wedding is called to a halt as the bride is literally walking down the aisle, Annajane begins to realize that maybe she’s been given a second chance. Maybe everything happens for a reason. And maybe, just maybe, she wants Mason back. Click here for the guide and here for our Bookreporter.com review.

Next up is The Red House by Mark Haddon. Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister Angela and her family to join his for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. He has just re-married and inherited a willful stepdaughter in the process; Angela has a feckless husband and three children who sometimes seem alien to her. The stage is set for seven days of resentment and guilt, a staple of family gatherings the world over. Told through the alternating viewpoints of each character, the book becomes a symphony of long-held grudges, fading dreams and rising hopes, tightly-guarded secrets and illicit desires, all adding up to a portrait of contemporary family life that is bittersweet, comic and deeply felt. I read this over spring break last year, and it reminded me why I love Mark’s work so much. Click here for the guide and here for our Bookreporter.com review.

Then we have The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin. At the turn of the 20th century, William Talmadge, a reclusive orchardist, tends to apples and apricots. He has always found love and solace among the fruit, but one day two teenage girls steal his fruit from the marketplace. Pregnant and scared, they take up on Talmadge’s land and build a trust with him. When men arrive on the orchard with guns, Talmadge must prepare for a tragedy; in order to protect the girls, he needs to reconcile with his own past. Click here for the guide and here for our Bookreporter.com review.

Finally, we’re revisiting the guide for Objects of My Affection by Jill Smolinski. Lucy Bloom is broke, freshly dumped by her boyfriend, and is forced to sell her house to send her 19-year-old son to drug rehab. Although she’s lost it all, she’s determined to start over. So when she’s offered a high-paying gig helping clear the clutter from the huge home of reclusive and eccentric painter Marva Meier Rios, Lucy grabs it. But she soon learns that the real challenge may be taking on Marva, who seems to love her objects too much to let go of any of them. Click here for the guide.

Just a reminder that we’ve been adding items of interest to our Facebook and Twitter feeds in between our monthly updates, so if you are not following us, think about “Liking” us (which is a really amusing way of putting things). We post contest reminders and fun book-inspired news that we find each month.

In December, we asked readers to let us know their favorite books of 2012 that they read with their group. We’re happy to report that more than 300 book groups shared their picks with us! Click here to see the top 15 most enjoyed titles of 2012. Many thanks to all of you who participated!

For those of you curious as to what book groups will be reading this fall, we’d like to tell you about an event that you may want to consider attending. On Friday, May 31st, from 9:30am to 10:50am, representatives from a dozen publishers will gather at BookExpo America in New York to share selections and book group news from their publishing houses in a speed-dating format designed to give book group leaders, booksellers, librarians and bloggers an inside look at what book groups will be tempted by for fall and winter. Galley giveaways and ideas for enhancing book group discussions will be part of this event. We did this format for the program last year and it was a huge success, thus we are excited about this year’s plans. Advance signup is required and seating will be assigned. Fill out the form found here to sign up. Please note: You must be registered to attend BookExpo America in order to attend this session. If you are not, click here to register.

My latest Bookreporter.com Bets On selection is Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss. Coming of age in Pasadena, California during the 1960s, Rebecca Madden and her friend, Alex, dream of lives beyond their mothers' narrow expectations. Their struggle to define themselves against the backdrop of an American cultural revolution unites them early on. But then, on one sweltering evening the summer before their last year of college, a single act of betrayal changes everything. Decades later, Rebecca’s haunting meditation on the past reveals the truth about that night, the years that followed, and the friendship that shaped her. Click here for my thoughts on this outstanding debut novel. It's so tightly written with great mood shifts and so well done.

Although our Spring Preview contests on Bookreporter.com end on Friday, March 8th at noon ET, we strongly encourage you to take a look at the feature. The titles we are spotlighting are ones that we know people will be talking about over the next few months.

Read faster this weekend….to make up for the lost hour. And here’s to a great month of book discussions with your group.

Carol Fitzgerald ([email protected])

PS. When you use the links below to purchase books, you also support ReadingGroupGuides.com as we have affiliate arrangements with each of them. Please consider this when shopping for books online!

• Broken Harbor by Tana French
• Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown
• The Conditions of Love by Dale M. Kushner
• Grave Consequences: The Grand Tour Series, Book 2 by Lisa T. Bergren
• The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones by Jack Wolf
• Virus Thirteen by Joshua Alan Parry